Page 67 of Love Beneath the Guillotine
That Émile thought Léon had the power to stop them…
But Léon promised him, “I won’t let them touch a hair. I’ll be back before you know it.”
Léon took all the day and well into the night to make it back to Reims, and that he did with unprecedented haste, not only due to his own urgency, but due to the strange determination of the beast he rode upon.
Destroyer had refused to let himself be led or encumbered by anyone but Léon. It quickly became apparent the creature was possessed of a desire and purpose all of its own. It showed no signs of understanding a word Léon tentatively spoke into its ear, but when Léon mounted him, the stallion turned directly for Reims of its own volition, and did not relent until they were home.
It scared him, certainly, to see an animal like that driven not by thirst or hunger, but seemingly by love or duty to a man it barely knew. But the fear didn’t change Léon’s belief that Henry was, at heart, good.
By the time he reached the prison, it was eleven, and everything was shut up tight. He wanted to scream out for him, to hit the walls and cry into the cells that he was there, that he had come, and that he would free Henry.
He knew they would never have let him keep his cloak. He knew he would be bitterly cold. He knew he would weep for his sister, and that he would curse Léon. But with no other option, he went back to his shack—the small and decrepit room that felt shabbier than ever. It was stifling after his venture out into the wide world with Henry. He’d always kept it just as clean as humanly possible, but there’s a dirt that comes with poverty. The dirt that crept under the door and through the cracks in thewalls—the unfixable and undefinable cracks where mice would always find their way in. The stains that couldn't be removed on items that couldn't be replaced. The holes in the things that he’d darned with his own fingers, clumsily, not half as nicely as Henry had darned his shirt.
Léon looked at Émile’s little bed, almost too small for him now. He looked over the bare and barren benches, the tiny fireplace empty and ashen. He felt utterly alone, and like more of a failure than he ever had before in his entire life.
He dropped his head onto his pillow, and he cried, and he cried, and he cried, all the night through.
32
CONVICTION
Léon woke the next day to discover that word had spread fast and far in Reims: there was a witch in the tower for the first time in one-hundred years, and his trial was due to begin that very afternoon.
Everyone wanted a seat at the hearing, and when the hour came, the courtroom was overfull and claustrophobic. But they didn’t have to cram in for too long. Like in all the other days of Léon’s life, the wheels of justice rolled on relentlessly, regardless of who might be ground beneath them. The hearing was brief and biased, and it would have been briefer still had they not had to wait so long for the star witness in the conviction of Henri De Villiers: Léon Lyon.
Léon was especially careful with his preparations that day. His hair was washed and brushed, his fingernails clipped, and every inch of him scrubbed pink. He wore the very best clothes he owned, and all in all, he walked into the courtroom looking responsible, put-together, trustworthy, and stupidly beautiful.
He was a perfect contrast to Henry.
Henry looked exhausted. It had only been forty-eight hours, but he looked thinner somehow, diminished. There were new cuts and bruises on his cheeks, and Léon hated to think of thefight he must have put up as they forced him into the tower, chained him to the walls. Even now, beneath the table, Léon knew his hands must be restrained, held tight in iron engraved with warding against witchcraft.
Henry sat silently in profile to Léon. He knew he was there, but he refused to look at him. He stared dead ahead as the trial began.
Testimonies were gone through from Henry’s sister’s trial. A few witnesses had been brought in to identify him as the same man who had made such a fuss when she was arrested.
Her jailer from Dieppe spoke of how Henry had found him in a bar, bought him a drink, stood by him all night, then accompanied him out of the pub, where he found himself overwhelmed with tiredness. When he woke the next morning, his keys, Henry, and the girl were all missing.
A spate of highway attacks were then linked to Henry and Catherine, via the route they took to Rethel, where they were caught again before Catherine was transferred to Reims.
Then there was the man Henry had stolen the carriage from. Had any of the ladies present that day been asked, Henry might have come off a little better. As it was, their father inspired the court with the firm belief that Henry was a cruel and hardened villain who went around with low types—girls in see-through dresses, men with no shirts. Léon’s name was mentioned. Notes were made.
They heard from a local farmer, who was quite sure he had seen Henry in the vicinity of his farm when his black stallion disappeared. He couldn’t be sure, but he had a notion Henry had taken him.
The cart man then described to the court how he had witnessed the defendant pull a woman who matched Catherine’s description from the pit.Alive. Once again, Léon’s name was mentioned. More notes were taken.
All through the day, Léon’s gaze fell again and again upon Henry. Fleetingly. He couldn’t afford for anyone to notice the way he might look at him, yet his eyes were drawn irresistibly, begging for one whisper of understanding.
Until it was his turn to testify.
Now Henry sought him, and his gaze did not relent once as Léon took the stand. His mouth was hard, his eyes full of hate, worse than those first days. Worse than the sneering judgement in the bar, worse than when he smirked and called him a peasant, worse even than when he took that knife to Émile’s throat. Because all those times, Henry had been in control, and Henry got to choose how he felt about Léon. And he had always liked him. Until now.
Léon’s name had been dragged through the mud that day, and by the time Léon finally took the stand, all he had to depend on was the years of hard graft he’d put in taking heads, and the showmanship he’d honed during those many intolerable days.
The first question: “Do you know the defendant?”
“Yes,” Léon said.
“Louder please.”
