Page 75 of Love Beneath the Guillotine
Léon would never have been so open in the street with a woman, certainly not with a man. Certainly not with Henry, of all the men in the world. Henry, who had punched him in the face not even an hour earlier. But his lips parted andHenry!
Christ, what was happening to him?
“Get on the horse,” Henry said, and it was demanding in a way that Léon had never known he craved. Foot in stirrup, he obediently swung himself up onto Destroyer’s back. Henry was up behind him in seconds, arms wrapped around his waist, coaxing Destroyer into a gallop with the tap of his foot.
They didn’t retrace their steps towards Saint-Quentin; they moved west, towards Soissons, whence they would wind north, along the most remote country roads they thought might get them to Amiens.
But one horse cannot last two men long, and Henry seemed to know Destroyer was flagging before Léon saw any sign of it. He spoke words of encouragement to the beast, and Léon listened carefully to every one of them.
He’d accused Henry of witchcraft, and Henry had owned up to it the last time they’d spoken, before the court case and the imprisonment and the murder. But Léon didn’t mention it now, and nor did Henry. It was smarter to keep quiet. A horse’s hooves in the night might not rouse too much suspicion, but two men arguing over witches just might.
Once they’d reached the quiet outskirts of Reims, beyond the city walls, Henry pulled Destroyer up with only the words, “Stop here.”
It was all darkness and moonlight dancing over rolling hills. “What are we doing?” Léon whispered.
Henry was off and scaling the wooden fence of a farm. “We need another horse.”
“You can’t just steal a horse!” Léon made to jump down, but Destroyer kicked about in a small circle, as though he was in on the horse-stealing plot too, or at the very least, approved of it. Léon pulled on his bridle, as much to hold on as anything else, but he was given little choice but to wait as Henry’s shadowy figure disappeared into complete black.
Léon was well aware he had actually been riding a stolen horse, regardless of what Henry said about Destroyer wanting to come along, yet being present during the act of obtaining another one felt entirely different.
He was tense as he watched down the open road, wondering what he would do if someone came along. Maybe Destroyer would know what to do, like that time he’d hidden himself in the bushes to avoid detection of the cart man. Weird horse.
What to do was something he should probably figure out for himself, though. After all, was this life now? For the foreseeable future? Or until he got back to Émile and Souveraine? And then what? What would either of them say to him if they found out the truth?
Before Léon could spiral into a million nightmarish visions of tears and remonstrances and things being thrown at him, he saw Henry in silhouette, mounting a horse, who walked, seemingly of its own volition, down the hill towards him. He heard a little “Hyah,” and the horse bolted across the paddock, then jumped the fence smoothly. Henry pulled her around in a circle, and she trotted up to Destroyer with a whinny. He raised hishead, touching his nose briefly to hers, and Henry looked very handsome and very pleased with himself.
“Is this what you do?” Léon asked. “You just take any horse you like? What if those people need it?”
“Unless they’re about to be burned alive for witchcraft,” he retorted, “I believe we need it more.” And with another, “Hyah!” Henry was off, galloping down a dusty laneway.
“Fuck,” Léon whined, which Destroyer seemed to take as a sign to catch up, and off they shot.
The four made fast progress, faster than they ever would have made on just Destroyer, the short break or the new company having given the animal a second wind. They passed Soissons, keeping to the outskirts of the town, but as the chill dawn began to expose their position, they decided to look around for a shelter to hide in.
Every house and barn and shed along the way was considered until finally they came across a small and broken down cottage, sitting alone in an enormous field, some way back from the road. Stone wall, the roof half caved in, vines growing all through cracks in the facade, it would have to do.
The horses picked gingerly through a scramble of blackberry vines, rabbit holes, and mounds of weedy grass. Léon dismounted at the rotten-looking door, while Henry led the horses around the back to keep them out of sight.
The wood dipped beneath Léon’s fingers when he touched it, damp all the way through. He tried the handle, to no avail, but figured the door couldn’t be held in there too effectively. He raised his boot, kicked, and the whole thing fell straight off whatever excuse for hinges had been keeping it up.
He stepped over it carefully, picked it up and leaned it in place, trying to make the little house continue to appear just as uninhabited as it had been for decades. The gaping spaces either side would give little relief from sight or elements, but then theenormous hole in the ceiling was hardly conducive to comfort either.
But they weren’t there for comfort.
The sun was rising, and Léon’s world shone blue and pink in some broken and abandoned cottage in the middle of nowhere. How had he found himself there, having murdered a man, broken his lover out of prison, and stolen a horse?
But his mind meandered somewhere in the middle of that reflection.
His lover.
Is that what Henry was?
The minutes ticked by in ivy and stone and wisps of pink clouds in a purpling sky, and Léon stood there, a criminal, tension ratcheting up every waiting second as he attempted to come to grips with the last twenty-four hours.
The door shifted. Henry’s naked hands, with his gloves and his cloak confiscated by the law, then Henry, stepping into the lightening room.
They hadn’t stopped for hours. Hadn’t been silent together, hadn’t talked about what any of it meant.
