Page 81 of The Darkest Oath

There was a shout. “Gabin! We found someone you would want to see!”

Gabin bounded to the edge of the road, where they dragged a man beneath the street lamp and forced him to his knees. One pulled his hair back.

“Rollant?” Élise whispered.

Gabin grunted before he laughed. “Ah, Monsieur Rollant Montvieux. Do you live here?”

Rollant sighed and laughed with Gabin. “No, Monsieur Roux, I do not.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I had a job to do to pay for bread,” he said.

Gabin walked up to him and punched him hard in the face. Élise flinched.

Rollant spat blood before looking up at Gabin.

A woman’s scream took their attention. “I saw him riding at the palace! He is a King’s Bodyguard!” She yelled and pointed with a knotty finger. “And she was with him!” Her finger swept to Élise.

Her heart sank. The two men holding her threw her to the street and kicked her.

Gabin turned to the crowd, his voice rising above their murmurs. “Do you hear that? Traitors, both of them! One a spy for the king, the other a traitor who dared to lie to us, to all of you. Will you let them escape justice?” The roar of the mob shook the street, and Élise felt the ground shift beneath her feet.

“Tie her up too,” Gabin barked. The two men grabbed her hands and started to drag her on the street as she screamed, reconstituting the crowd.

But Rollant bellowed, “She’s innocent. I lied to her.”

The men paused, and Rollant directed his next comments to Gabin.

“And how ironic the command to kill her comes from the man who made her wear bruises and bloody marks of his dominance. She left you, Gabin, and now you want revenge on her. They should tie you up as well. We all saw her bruises and marks. None of us is blind.”

Gabin sneered, grabbed Élise, and pulled her to stand.

A murmur rippled through the crowd at Rollant’s words. A few faces turned to Gabin, their expressions wary.

“Lies,” Gabin snarled, raising his arms to reclaim the crowd’s fury. “Lies from a royalist dog! Will we believe him, or will we take back our justice?”

The hesitant murmurs dissolved into roaring chants. Gabin wrapped his arms around Élise and brandished his baker’s knife. “If I recall, Élise, when we first met Rollant, I suspected him as a spy, and your words were that if he were a spy, you’d draw first blood and kill him,” he said loud enough for the crowd to hear.

“Now kill him.” Gabin shoved the dagger into her hand and pushed her into the space before Rollant. “Show us where your loyalty lies.”

Élise glanced back at Rollant before turning to Gabin, frozen in fear. She scanned the angry mob; their shouts dimmed in her ears and gave way to her pounding heart and shaky breath.

“He said he is a navy man, but is now a king’s guard as well? He lied to all of us. He doesn’t want our freedom.” Gabin spoke to the crowd. “He wants the king to oppress us! Death to him!” Gabin yelled. “Death to Rollant Montvieux!”

The cheer erupted into the night.

Élise glanced at the dagger in her hand. “I can’t do it, Gabin,” she whispered.

Gabin sneered at her and answered her publicly. “Your words were ‘Take. It. Back!’” He pumped the air for each word. “Take. It. Back.”

The crowd chanted in unison while Gabin closed in on her.

“You said, if you remember, little dove, that if he were an informant, you’d be the one to take his life. Did you not say that Élise, that night he first came to my bakery? Well, it turns out, he was an informant,” Gabin gritted. “He betrayed you. I have never betrayed you. He lied to you, but I have never lied to you, though we’ve had hard times. Be good to your word, Élise, and kill him like you said, or I may be unable to save you from this crowd.”

Gabin forced his hand around hers so much that she felt she would have a permanent indentation of its hilt in her palm.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” Gabin whispered, his breath hot against her ear as he tightened her grip around the hilt. “The weight of justice. Go on, Élise—be the hand of the people. Take back what he stole from you.”

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