24Disclaimer: Everything belongs primarily to Victor Hugo, who published the original back in 1831. The rest belongs to Disney, as they changed the story, as they are wont to do.
Author's Note: I have to confess that this story reared up out of nowhere. I have never particularly liked Disney's adaptation of Hugo's work, but I found myself watching Hunchback recently while bored. I remembered then how much I enjoy the soundtrack, and how fascinating I find Claude Frollo as a Disney villain. The following piece is a sidetrack in to a world where Frollo captures Esmeralda and keeps her. Enjoy!
Hollow Victory
He stood over her in the dark, a lonely shaft of moonlight gilding the edge of the blade he held in thoughtful hands.
Hell's fire indeed.
A year. A year of unyielding nothing. A year of making love to what might as well be a rock. Or a corpse.
Be mine or you will burn. She had, shockingly, managed to do neither, though she had kept him burning since the day of the Festival, the day he'd seen her dance…
It had been a brilliant afternoon, one indelibly burned on his soul. He had not lied when he had told his traitorous foster-son that he took no delight in the mockery of the peasants. He carried it as his solemn duty to be present every year to ensure that the more vicious, rabid crimes street people had accepted as common did not occur. For his attendance always seemed to keep the worst elements at bay. Crime – and murder in particular – had doubled on the one occasion, years ago, that he had not gone. Since then, he viewed it as a necessity. The crowd of revelers were noisy, weak, foolish, licentious and vulgar, but they were citizens of Paris, and his job was to protect them – especially from themselves.
The gypsies had never failed to put on a hypnotizing display of sin-filled delights, and this year he expected nothing different as he grimly took his place at a safe distance from their makeshift stage.
Their traditional master of ceremonies (Clopin, he later learned after raiding the Court of Miracles), pranced, flipped, danced and generally made a spectacle of himself and the roaring mob that happily joined in. Frollo pinched the bridge of his nose, wondering if the idiots grinning foolishly as they danced in confused circles had any idea what they looked like to a sane man?
And then Clopin had vaulted to the top of the tent behind him and announced her: "Esmeraldaaaaaa!" A pinch of gunpowder, a flash and an explosion—
And the definition of temptation was dancing before them, tambourine in hand. She slunk about the stage, bright green eyes flashing fire and promises as she flirted outrageously with her audience. Her raven's wing hair flew about her, reflecting the sunlight like black diamonds, and as she tossed back her head, her eyes met his over the heads of the crowd.
His blue eyes snared her deep jade gaze, and he was enchanted. For the first time, he understood some part of what kept the people of Paris riveted by this display every year…
She was bouncing over the crowd, her small feet landing on heads and shoulders, tap dancing her way towards him. And then she was in his box, in his lap, cool hands roughened by working every day running over his robe, up the planes of his face, wrapping her silk scarf around his neck and drawing him close—
He reached for her, unconscious of the crowd, blind and deaf to the world, aware only of this sudden, terrible, wonderful aliveness…only to have her shove his chaperon down over his face and sail merrily back to the stage, leaving him reeling and the commoners laughing, screaming for more.
Hatred, pure and glacial, doused him, turning him cold and lighting an icy flame. It was followed by lust, pure and scalding, blazing to life and robbing him of speech, of thought, of breath.
Desire for her consumed him alive. He wrestled with his internal demons, demons that had never made an appearance until now. All he could see was the toss of her head, the waterfall of her hair, the sensuality of her eyes. All he could feel were the tips of her fingers grazing his skin, the silk of the kerchief she had left behind.
"I'll find her if I have to burn down all of Paris."
And yet here he stood, a year later, a dagger in hand as he considered setting it to her throat and surrendering to the inferno of Hell itself what he had not been able to tame or claim since destroying her nest and exiling her people from the city.
Quasimodo had, indeed, proven his usefulness. The Lord had wanted him to have this heathen, to teach her His ways. Why else would He have made it so easy for Frollo and his men to follow the hunchback and another betrayer, Phoebus, straight in to the Court of Miracles without anyone catching them?
Still…Frollo had failed in the rest of his assignment. Esmeralda had never warmed to him. Never spoken to him, never indicated that he was anything other than a chore to be endured in silence and distraction. The only acknowledgement to the life of her body was her warmth, and her steady, unhurried, dispassionate breathing as she lay under him.
At first, it had been enough to have her.
"Am I not to be burned, then?" she demanded of him as she stood in her separate cage, alone and apart from her brethren, some select few of which had been chosen to feed the bonfire in the square. He favored her with a crooked smile. There was fear in the green eyes that haunted him so, but also defiance, and a fierce pride that anticipated death.
Rather than answer, he reached out a long finger and caressed her arm, wrist to elbow. She recoiled, backing away from him until she hit the far end of her prison. Fear was now dominant, and shadowed by disgust.
"No," she whispered.
"It was you who set this spell, witch," Frollo snarled quietly through gritted teeth. "And you will be mine." He had thought to give her a choice – let her burn if she thought death a better option than his bed! – but seeing her at the Court of Miracles had undone him. He could not leave so fickle a thing to chance and a young gypsy's rebellion.
"Sir! Where do you want her?" the lieutenant snapped a salute.
"Take her to the Palace of Justice. Keep her in this cage and under guard until I arrive," he ordered coldly.
"Yes sir!" He mounted the horse attached to the cage, slapped its rump and started off. Esmeralda's eyes were fastened on him in desperation. Frollo watched them until they were out of sight.
When he arrived at the Palace after a day of burnings (thirty-four of the leaders had perished in all, and the remaining hundreds would be exiled), she was, indeed, still in the yard, under guard and awaiting his command.
"Send a serving woman to the blue wing," he commanded the guard tersely. The man saluted sharply and turned on his heel.
"You keep your prisoners in painted cells?" she mocked.
"Only you, my dear," he answered slowly, and watched her shiver faintly at the endearment. "You are…a special prisoner."
"Your whore!" She spat at him, and he lifted a kerchief to his cheek to wipe away her spittle.
"I think not. I do not use such women. You have been granted a life of ease many Parisian women would kill for."
"Then they are welcome to kill me," Esmeralda snapped.
Frollo actually chuckled, impatience arising in him. This magnificent creature would soon be in his bed, and dominating her would be akin to conquering the world.
"Oh, my dear…you have no idea what awaits you," he almost purred. The guard came racing back, and Frollo stepped away from the cage. "Bind her wrists and take her to the prepared room. Give me the key when you have locked the door."
"Yes, sir."
That first night, and many of the following, it had been sufficient enough to feel himself inside her, to feel her flesh under him, to feel the rise and fall of her chest under his hand when he was lying next to her, sated.
But soon, too soon, he realized that he had not won. He had not conquered her – she had never fought. But nor had she surrendered. She never moved towards him, never made any sign that she even really knew he was there. He had longed for her to fight him, to struggle against him, that her blows might be made caresses, and the scene at the Festival be repeated, except this time, when he reached for her, she would come to him willingly, with fire glowing in her green eyes.
He had stayed away from her for days, brooding, and when he came back, he struck her full across the face as soon as he crossed the threshold. A flash of – something – flickered in her eyes, but it was quickly quelled as she submitted without reacting to his violence, as if it were no more than a small child's game to be endured.
His blows had not raised another shadow of response from his unmovable gypsy goddess, and he swiftly set them aside. Had he wanted to beat her, he would have done so before consigning her to the flames. He wanted to own her, to hear her call his name in their passion, for her to share his desire.
Gifts had been the next ploy. Expensive fabrics to be woven into beautiful dresses. Spices and sweets from the most exclusive markets in Paris. Jewels of a price that threatened to bankrupt him. A tumbler to bring a smile to her obstinately sorrowful mouth.
"What can I give you that will make you smile for me?" he had asked her six months ago.
She had not turned to face him, staring at the small, high window that was her only source of natural light. "Freedom."
"You will run. Esmeralda…you are mine."
A shrug of her narrow shoulders. She had not been a large woman to begin with, and when his hands closed about her shoulders, it was easy to feel the slenderness of weight loss. "Then you will not see me smile."
He had released her as if seared, and the next time he came to her, he came prepared to seduce her.
That, too, had failed, although he had learned a great deal in the process. There was a certain type of touch that brought her body to respond, even if she fought it.
But she had grown immune to that, too, and so it was that the judge stood, considering his puzzling prize with knife in hand and debating the merits of ending her life and moving on. He would burn for her until death claimed him, too, but to have her at his mercy and still feel impotent to move her…
Her eyes opened, fastened on the quiet gleam of steel, reflecting the moon from her single, high window, and then moved to the night-shrouded face of her captor and would-be lover. "You are here to release me?" And she arched her head back on her pillow, baring her neck and offering to his blade what she had refused his eager mouth.
The gesture snapped something in him, and he swiftly thrust the dagger into his robe. Release? No. If tumbling into the abyss was her road out, he would not surrender to her.
"I think not," he said in his low voice. "Merely…debating…what it would take to encourage you to respond." She let her head fall back on her pillow, closing her eyes.
Frollo let himself out of her room, turning the key, and strode to his own, setting the dagger back in its place. It was abject foolishness to leave anything in her room that could be turned into a weapon, much less hand her the genuine article.
He returned to her, settling on the bed beside her, he placed one of his pale hands on her dark stomach, marveling at the difference in their skin, how beautiful they were side-by-side.
"You will one day," he whispered in her ear as they began their nightly ritual.
He would sit next to Satan in Hell before he allowed this woman to beat him. Patience was the virtue his Lord required of him.
Patience would turn his hollow victory into the real thing.
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A/N: Please review and let me know what you think!