Philippe looked down at her with wide eyes. “Alex,” he hissed, “Get on your feet.”
“I don’t know how to anymore,” she said, a giggle caught in her throat.
He stared at her in disbelief. Then he reached down and took her arm. He pulled her up like she weighed no more than a bird.
“Oh, that’s how you do it,” she said, staring down at her feet. She stomped twice to test out the ground. She looked up at him and bit back laughter.
“You had two sips of drink. How did you get this drunk?”
“I told you I don’t ever drink because it makes-me-so-stupid.” She paused, her words winding up like a top. “Am I slurring?”
“Just stay in the back and don’t say anything,” he said hurriedly.
She nodded her head and followed directions, sliding out to the edge of their covering. How did these men sober up so quickly? This is why she didn’t drink. She should never ever drink. She leaned against the cool stone and tried to look casual. Wait, not casual. Intimidating. She bared her teeth at the dark wilderness.
Then, from the blackness of the night, emerged three men into the firelight. They were grimy and shaggy, the signs of their time in the caves very evident. The leader, a giant of a man with light brown hair that hung past his shoulders, held a wide, blunt knife out to the side, and the two menaccompanying him held their weapons out to be surrendered as well. The three of them had light eyes, indicating northern roots. They wore ragged clothes, their breeches torn and faded. They approached with their hands up to indicate surrender, but nothing else about their body language was passive. The one in front wore scars that spoke of many battles and looked like pain would come to those who threatened him. Alex shuddered to think of tangling with him on her own.
“Take their swords,” said Philippe.
Auguste and Luc sprang forth to take the weapons the men were holding out. The men didn’t fight.
There they stood. Philippe’s men with their backs to the cavern, the three rebels with their backs to the river. It was the moment they had been inching towards since they left Chevalerie, and Alex could feel the pressure radiating in the walls and centering on Philippe and the man before him. But she herself actually felt at ease, more interested in chasing a moth that had fluttered towards her than the meeting. She brought her hand to her mouth to laugh, but she passed it off as a sneeze. The eyes of the man at the center darted over to her. She coughed and looked away.
“I am sent here by my master to discuss a treaty,” the large man said, in the formal language of France. The words were eloquent and respectful, not at all what she’d expected to come out of his mouth.
“I am disappointed that he doesn’t come himself,” responded Philippe. The same formal language fell off his tongue easily, not showing any surprise if he too felt it.
“He sends his most trusted lieutenant,Monsieur,” the man replied with a bow. “As I see the Duke has done.”
They continued in the same formal language and navigated the introductions. No one paid much attention to Alex, far off to the side, and she congratulated herself for remaining inconspicuous. When they sat, she followed but sidled further towards the opening of the cave, the cool air feeling good in her lungs. The fire continued to pop and break, sending occasional hot sparks into the air and causing the men to jump and brush them away.
Despite the haziness in her head, she listened closely, eager as the rest of them to understand just what the crux of this problem was. She determined that the three men were not cut from the same cloth. The leader carriedhimself very differently from the two brutes who accompanied him, each of whom seemed as dumb as he did nasty, but the man in front had intelligence in his eyes. The leader went by the name Girard Giroux and had an ancient form of nobility behind his speech. Even his name, she felt, was historically significant, but she couldn’t quite remember why.Giroux.She tried it on her tongue to see if it brought up any recognition. It didn’t, but the sound earned her a sharp glance from Philippe. She shut her mouth once more.
The discussions went on for almost an hour, or it could have been ten minutes from her cloudy perception. Philippe had a keen sense of fairness marked with a demeanor that was not to be provoked. Giroux, likewise, was deferential but not a pushover either. He had an agenda and wanted Philippe to know his story. Giroux was from a small village known as Babin, one of a series of little towns along the banks of the Durance River. Alex knew of the town but had never visited it herself. The river towns were tucked into recesses in the canyon and are notorious for being inaccessible. Because of their isolation, there was very little trade, and the river, which was prone to flooding, had made it impossible to farm items that could be exported to larger towns. The townspeople were suffering, and Giroux explained to Philippe they felt forgotten by the Duke and their country.
They wanted to tax passage through the unregulated river. Currently, boats traveling the river paid no tolls. Babin sat at a critical bend, making it the perfect place to administer a toll, which Giroux insisted would be fair, bringing revenue and trade into the region. There was no reason the northern part of Provence should not benefit from the ships commuting to the South. And with no assistance or change to the regulations, their home was sure to die.
Alex didn’t follow the politics of the region too closely, but she felt like this river was always causing problems. The Duke had refused a tax in the past, and, as Philippe explained to Giroux, he wanted the passageways into the region to be unfettered, fearing a tax would cause dissidence and fuel aggression towards these very people. The river was an important part of Provence and any alteration to the expected tolls could be felt throughout the region.
According to Giroux, the attacks had been intended to get the audience of the Duke, which, by bringing Philippe and his men to them, it had. Giroux and his master did not expect to be discovered and had hoped tomeet on more even footing. Uncovering their hideout had disturbed their plan. They first thought to run but then decided it was in everyone’s best interest to face up to their crimes now, before any more innocents were hurt. Nevertheless, Giroux argued, they had gone out of their way to strike areas that were not heavily populated. Though it was unfortunate for those who lost their homes, he claimed much thought was put into choosing areas that were economically prosperous and could absorb the losses.
“But more has been lost than homes,” Philippe said to Giroux.
Giroux nodded and looked down. “The boy that died,” he said. “I can say the attacks as of late have become more…impulsive. I take responsibility. And I grieve for his lost potential.” Then he raised his head once more. “I did not dare say our plight was free from sin.”
“Why do you hire mercenaries?” Philippe asked abruptly.
“Monsieur?”
“The men you command, they are mercenaries, no? Not your countrymen.”
Giroux paused for a long moment. “We have hired some mercenaries to help us.”
“But your attacks suggest the unskilled doings of men with no resources.”
“Monsieur,I have expressed that the attacks were solely to gain your attention.”
“And you had no other means by which to gain our attention? It seems a lot of preparation went into trying to hide the fact that you have a benefactor.”
