XXXV
She was there, looking out onto what was probably the balcony of her room, she had watched him get into the carriage that was taking him to his new prison.
He looked out through the bars, the moon was in the last stages of its cycle.
It had been nights since he had lingered to look at it, too lost in the beauty of his beloved, but now that she was gone the darkness had returned to frighten him and he sought the moon's faint light once more. An incurable absence.
Was the moon as fragile as they were, or did she give a damn about the tears and pale pupils from the too many hours spent not sleeping and counting that had separated them?
Who cared how far apart her eyes were if their gazes, lost in the wind between a balcony and the loggia, had merged?
Could he still ask the moon for help? After he had insulted her on nights as a lonely lover, now he was here to ask her to let the princess know that her smile was his own, to tell her to protect her, she who could, because surely even if he could Antoinette would no longer want him by her side, she who already shines by herself, shines more than the moon itself, as white as a white dress.
The moon knew it, he would never have been able to say goodbye to her, he dressed in gloomy sadness, dressed in black, too lost in his poems and in his novel life, too lost among his desires that, inside himself, never left him serene. But, after all, weren't the troubled skies the best rainbows?
That's why, at least with the moon on those nights, he wouldn't have proved to be strong, no poem would have saved him anyway if his princess wasn't there. He would have spoken to the firmament telling of his fears and anguish, he would have released the suffering that, in the eyes of the torturers, he would never have leaked and he would have screamed the pain that he would never have let some ears hear.
Light can be dark if you only focus on the shadows it casts. Perhaps that was why he had always lived so darkly.
She could be his sun, even at midnight.
Saying goodbye to her had been like tearing up the papers where they had written about them in those happy days, the memories devoured him, they were fixed thoughts.
He had only wasted time trying to help those in need, he had accomplished nothing.
It was just wasted time because now he had lost everything and he couldn't find the sense of it.
She was different, she was his reflection and he wondered if he felt his own immense emptiness inside.
Maybe his emptiness was different from that of the princess, maybe it was deeper, with roots well anchored in his soul of a child.
He would have loved to have her mother in front of his eyes for one last time and ask her if leaving was useful to really leave, if she thought about what she had left behind, if her thoughts had been divided by the kilometers, if worry had ever gripped her stomach preventing her from sleeping.
Rose, she too was in that emptiness, when she looked at the world around her with a sincere look, when she wiped her tears after hearing him tell her that they would never be too far from their parents if they were at the same distance from the sky.
<< We're here, get him down.>>
He sighed preparing hisself for his new domicile. Would there even be a window?
He was yanked out of the vehicle and escorted with little delicacy inside the bastille.
The soldiers' helmets reminded him of Antoinette's mask when, on that fountain, she kept her distance, with only her eyes uncovered, eyes that betrayed her, and he who learned to read her looks through the effects they made on him, also knew the taste of her silences.
And even though the sheets of their story had been torn out, he remembered every single word of those damned lines.
He climbed several steps, his wrists ached because of the handcuffs too tight, the wound on his leg sometimes reminded him that he was there and forced him to limp.
The passages were narrow and gloomy, the now ruined bricks of the walls poured on the ground in stale dust.
He passed by the cells and they all gave off a bad smell, he prayed that none of them were his, but when he realized he wouldn't find out anytime soon his stomach churned and fear began to eat away at his walls.
They were going to make him talk right away.
No, no matter what they would do to him, he would never talk.
<< Now we're going to have some fun, you rat of sewer.>>
He watched them sneer as they whisked him into the room filled only with objects that could provide pain and thought that maybe he had helped their family without knowing it, or maybe there was a child in the orphanage that they couldn't or wouldn't keep.
Whatever. He repeated to himself, sighing with his eyes closed as they bound their hands and feet on a wooden table.
He didn't stop for a moment, he couldn't give himself peace. He walked restlessly from one corner of the room to the other where they used to gather to eat.
How could this happen?
Two dead friends and Adrien locked up somewhere waiting to die.
And all because of an unlikely love. If he had known before, he would never have given him all this time.
<< Bruno, I...>>
<< Shut up Coline, you've already done enough.>> He scolded her, looking at her grudgingly.
<
<< I don't believe you Coline, you just went crazy like a silly hen because you knew about the conversation between your father and Adrien! You condemned us all, because of your senseless jealousy.>> The boy raised his tone of voice even more.
The blonde lowered her head and with her mind went back to those moments. A soldier held her father by the collar of his shirt while another held her mother by the hair. They shouted asking where was the blond boy staying in the room with the black cloak, Mr. Bernard had insisted saying he knew nothing about that young man, until a man in uniform had threatened to take the older daughter and revealing that he had known, "from certain sources", that that boy had a good relationship with the whole family and that he had confessed to the innkeeper that he had gone to declare his love.
At those words, Coline's mind had made a radical change in thoughts. He loved someone else and, perhaps, while they were here risking their lives for him, Adrien was in sweet company enjoying his love. So what about her? He wasn't even here to save them. Ungrateful and stupid. Traitor. She wasn't going to risk watching a parent and sister die, she wasn't going to risk violence.
So she talked about the shelter.
<< There's no point in yelling at her now. We need to focus and decide what to do. Adrien will surely be at the Bastille.>> Gabriel intervened, putting himself between the two.
The wooden door opened making a noise that forced everyone to turn towards it, but as soon as Bruno saw the girl he rushed to embrace her.
<< Bernadette! >> He held her tight.
<< Oh Bruno, how are you? >> She pulled away a little to look him well in the face.
<< Distressed, my dear, saddened. How are you? Do you have any important news?>>
Bernadette moved away from the boy and sat on a chair next to the group intent on finding any solution.
<< Tonight they took him to the Bastille. They will torture him to know if and how many accomplices he has. Antoinette is devastated, she feels tremendous guilt.>> She sighed sadly.
<< And she must. I told her not to get involved, not to listen to Adrien's flattery, I warned her that it would be nothing but trouble.
<
<
<< It was her, Bruno, the woman in the market was her.>>
Everyone was amazed and the silence was only interrupted by yet another entrance. This time it was the innkeeper.
<< I'm sorry to interrupt you, this place is no longer safe for you, you can't stay long.>>
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Agnés was sitting in the armchair she had in her bedroom, an armchair that she had seen a lot of when she was in Adrien's company.
She sighed before starting to torture her thumbnail again.
She hadn't seen him in days, had missed him and felt his overwhelming absence, then she had seen the bodies of the two boys who used to operate with him. But where was he?
So she had run to the Bernard' inn to ask for an explanation and she heard what she had never wanted to hear.
And what was all this melancholy now? Maybe it was just nostalgia for past evenings that would probably never come back, for moments that had disappeared.
She remembered the jealousy of him telling her how much Coline had grown up and become pretty, when her fear that she could never be the only one had become more overbearing.
What absurd emotions, the feeling of discomfort at having to share him and the fear of discovering that he had abandoned her a long time ago.
She searched her memories for a gesture, a word, a single moment in which he had been hers, really hers. But it was only an illusion, it was only passion that had taken her beyond reason.
No, it wasn't love, it was only the nostalgia of beautiful and carefree moments, it was the melancholy of an irreplaceable company, the one that gripped her every night, it was the jealousy of something that belonged to her, the one she wanted or needed to belong to.
He had never been hers.
She huffed and quickly rose from her seat.
She fixed her dress and hair looking in the mirror and left the room.
How would she tell her sister that her beloved Prince Adrien would never visit her again?