In the Land of Monsters and Men

"In the land of monsters and men, she was an angel."

*rated for strong language, and implied sexual situations.

Center of Paris, The Gallows -

The midday air of Paris was thick with the smell of smoke almost burning the lungs of the large cloaked gypsy man who dodged through a dense crowd. His name was Gilles. Like most of his kind, he never had a last name. He was from a lone mother and considered nothing but a bastard child turned thief leering from the shadows with the rest of his gypsy tribe.

Personally, Gilles didn't give the slightest care to what they had to say. He had a life, friends, and a home. It was a place hidden from the gadje and their tyrant judge. A place where one of his closest comrades ruled as king and he, the obedient second hand man willing to lay down his life if the occasion called for it. An occasion like the one he presently found himself in.

The throng of lowly peasants had their attention directed at a man who stood bound by the wrists before the noose.

Gilles stood nearby, his face hidden mostly by the hood of his ragged cape, searching the crowd discretely. His presence went unknown to the people around him who were far too preoccupied with throwing whatever rotting vegetables and vulgar words they had at the bound man standing at the gallows.

"Have this ye gypsy scum!" cried a man to his side before hurling an indistinguishable rotten vegetable. Gilles managed to duck to the side just in time.

He cursed the watchers on under his breath. It had become second nature to him to hate the ones who hated him.

"Have your fun riding the Devil's knob!" laughed a man before glancing to the bottle he held in his hand and seeming to debate an idea in his mind. A second later, he shrugged and threw his arm back in an effort to hurl the bottle. Fortunately for the ill-fated man before the hecklers, Gilles snatched the bottle as he walked past, leaving the drunkard's fist wheeling through thin air.

"Thank you," he said as he continued to shove past peasants, "I was finding myself dry as dust."

The gypsy man on the platform gazed upward past the hecklers. With his broad shoulders pushed back and chest raised, he was a calm and regal figure. The crowd had seemingly no effect on him.

He was a striking man. He looked about 40 though his muscular physic made it appear otherwise. His pleasingly exotic eyes and pronounced cheekbones stood out beneath the filth that crusted his beard and the blood that stained his dirty excuse of a tunic.

The man was obviously Romany which the crowd had picked up on without a question asked. From the dark shade of his skin to the wavy ink black hair that fell past his shoulders; his ancestry practically echoed from his skin.

Yet, there was another apparent clue to his foreign ways. Across his brow was an intricate design etched in dark ink. Markings could also bee seen across his biceps and fingers. The bizarre mutilations only reminded the onlookers of the whispers they heard in the streets; "The gypsies practiced a dark magic beneath the city. Magic that summoned Satan himself. And they were to blame for bad luck and hardship. "

Everything about the man terrified them. From his large build to his low mumbles in a foreign tongue. They were practically itching to see him drop.

Gilles, still making his way through the crowd, took a healthy swig from the bottle.

Wiping his lips, he spotted a tall lean figure that was also wearing a cloak that swept the ground and hung low over his face. This lean figure was gazing upward, mysterious and distant from the crowd.

"Fine day for a hanging, non mon ami?" he asked approaching the man from the side.

The man did not take his gaze from the foreigner on stage.

"I prefer a bit more of an overcast for my hangings, Gilles," he said in a melodic voice that was slightly accented.

Gilles went to take another swig but was suddenly stopped as the bottle was ripped from his grasp.

The lean cloaked man swung his head back gulping the remains of the bottle. Finishing, he threw the glass to the ground, wiped his goatee clad chin with a gloved hand and lent a smirk to the man beside him.

"A cloudy day adds to the dramatic effect, you see."

Gilles laughed a bit humorlessly before glancing back to the noose.

"So that's the poor bloke? Never thought I'd see the likes of him in this position."

"Ahhh, every dog has his day. His bad day… his good day… his lucky day. And then," he said just as Judge Claude Frollo stepped onto the platform, "his very lucky day."

Gilles nodded at that, "I suppose being close friends with Clopin Trouillefou comes with its benefits."

"My friendship has nothing to do with it." stated the man Gilles had named as Clopin. "I just awoke feeling a bit more sympathetic than usual."

The two fell silent as the Judge unrolled a scroll and began to read aloud.

"You see before you Gilles Le Roux. A man of gypsy and Romany lineage accused of defiling the law and starting a brawl with a guard of Paris openly in the square…"

The Judge's steel voice fell onto the crowd though they hardly noticed his presence and continued to shame the accused.

After sharing his words, Frollo turned to the man, Rabel Le Roux, who continued to look onward.

"Any final words you impudent wretch?" he questioned in a chillingly emotionless tone.

Rabel narrowed his brow, parted his lips slightly, and almost smiling stated: "Vive le France."

"Aw, shut your mouth! We want to his neck snap!" cried an onlooker followed by a stream of endless other impatient voices.

The two cloaked men watched on as Frollo sneered to the man leaning in to whisper him something. Rabel remained tight-lipped looking upward. Frollo scoffed at him.

"No matter. One more deviated soul in Hell is of no meaning to me. His sentence is death," said the Judge then directed at the crowd, "You, Rabel Le Rox, shall hang by the neck until dead. May God have mercy on your soul!" He then nodded to the masked hangman and made his leave to watch on from the far corner of the stage.

The pair of men in the crowd watched breathlessly as the hangman cracked his knuckles and, ever so slowly, reached for the lever.

Rabel Le Roux then looked higher than he had been and began to mouth words in a language used thousands of roads away.

Just as the masked man grabbed the lever and pulled it back with a mighty tug, Gilles dashed nearer to the stage and dropped to the ground on his hands and knees.

Clopin glanced to the stage. He had to time this preciously otherwise he'd turn out to be the stiff being dragged away.

As the trap door under Rabel's feet swung open, Clopin sprinted toward Gilles, and using his body as a step, he leapt onto the stage in a magnificent flip. Once he found his footing, he gracefully turned to the crowd extending his cape to hide the place where Rabel had stood a moment before. Those who had been paying the close attention would have gotten a glance at the arrow buried into the wood that had snapped the rope around Rabel Le Roux's neck.

As the crowd cried in disbelief, Clopin bathed in their shock and smiled openly at their fear. His hood hid his face only reveling from his nose below.

"I am so sorry to disappoint!" he proclaimed careful to keep his voice low in an effort to further disguise himself. "But my good comrade Le Roux had forgotten he had made earlier plans."

"Get him!" cried Frollo pointing to Clopin. When his orders went unattended, he looked to the hangman just in time to see him stumble off the platform, an arrow protruding from his chest.

"And my deepest apologies to you as well, my good judge," added Clopin with a bow to Frollo who gaped to the gypsy king in return.

Clopin glanced back to the crowd, only his smirk showing to the audience, "VIVE LE FRANCE!" he cried before throwing smoke pellets to the ground and disappearing in a flashing white mist.

Outskirts of Paris, Miller's Gypsy Hideaway -

"That blasted goat ate my best pair of trousers!" proclaimed a young man waving a pair of shredded pants before a lovely young woman with large green eyes.

"He did not mean to! We're all a bit hungry, Bernier, it's not my fault… or Djali's"

The young man, a thin boy with thick black hair, and dark pronounced features, threw his hands in the air in frustration.

"La Esmerelda, I put up with your incessant humming, your constant jingling, and putrid beast for far far too long!" he kept his voice low, but he was beginning to get louder than he realized.

"Stop your worrying, I can have those sewn without a problem. Just wait until we make it to the Court of Miracles." Said the young gypsy taking his pants and ignoring his various other disputes. Her generosity only proved to heat his blood.

"I think it should be a miracle if I do not kill you first!" he grabbed his garment back from her with a huff. Djali grunted at him jumping in front of Esmeralda.

She narrowed her thick eyebrows to him, "That's it you spoiled man! I'm leaving!" she said picking up her goat, and swinging a patched sack over her shoulder.

"Finally," he sighed watching her with indifference.

"I know the way to the Court," she continued, "What's stopping me from leaving you behind?"

"Because Monsieur Le Roux will be back at any moment now to lead us there himself." Said an older woman from a dark corner of the extremely small underground room they found themselves placed in. "Think of Celina," she added under her breath gesturing to a lonely young lady seated in the corner, gazing to her delicate hands in her lap.

The pair glanced to her feeling a bit guilty.

"I'm sorry, Madam Bernard" Esmeralda spoke up, "I guess I let this child get the better of me."

"HA! Child," Bernier jeered, "She calls a grown man a child!" he pointed to her as she stared him down with squinted eyes, "I pray for the man you marry. He'll be having you more often over his knee than in the bed."

"Go to hell," she sneered.

"Catch the pox!" he retorted without missing a beat.

"Cack!"

"Whore!"

"Impede yourselves!" Spat Madam Bernard hushing them. "Stop it now or that kindly man and his family will have us all thrown out! What will we do then? Where will we go?"

"Let them." Spoke up Celina reminding the rest of her presence. She had a thick accent and seemed to have a limited grasp the other's language. "We are better by ourselves than with that... fool!" Her venomous words turned to tears as a hand covered her mouth and she began to sob.

"See what you did?!" Said Esmeralda in a whisper walking past the boy to her own corner of the room as the old woman fled to the side of the younger one.

Celina hushed away her concern, "I am fine! Please. I know that he is safe. He wouldn't have told us to leave unless he had a plan," her words seemed hallow and cursing though her sad and worried eyes proceeded to fill with tears.

"Of course," agreed the madam. "I am certain as well. Le Roux is a smart man, and unconquerable man! Well I'd like to see those Parisians take on the likes of him."

"Thank you, Madam Bernard," she said faintly as she closed her eyes.

Just then, the group jumped to a strong knock at the door from the room above.

"What's that?" asked Esmeralda both her and Djali standing at alert.

"Hush!" said Bernier trying to listen carefully to the muffled voices.

Madam Bernard clung to the side of Celina, "Is it the guards? Could they have found us so quickly?"

Bernier rolled his eyes before barking at the old woman to silence herself.

But his attempts fell flat as soon as Celina began to softly sob and Esmeralda began to pace, her belled ensemble jingling.

"EVERYONE STOP." He commanded in as loud a voice he could manage.

The room fell to silence, the only sounds to be heard from above were the creaks of the floor board.

Bernier pursed his lips and slowly reached to clutch the dagger that hung from his belt.

The group starred upwards, scared for their lives, as light crept into the room and the trap door was opened.

There stood two dark men clad in cloaks, feathered hats, and loudly colored clothes

Bernier sighed loudly, "Gods, this place is going to be cramped tonight…" he smiled mockingly to them, "Which one of you lucky bastards wants to share a cot with the witch and her beast?"

One of the three men laughed off the boy's assumptions and knelt down to the hidden room, "I am Andre, and we are here by order of the King of Truands. He wishes to inform you that Rabel Le Roux is well and being cared for in the Court of Miracles."

"Oh, what news!" Proclaimed the older woman embracing Celina who only looked onto the other gypsies emotionlessly.

"You're Clopin's men?" Asked Esmeralda. "Did he make mention of me? La Esmeralda?"

The same man shook his head, "No, but he does wish for each of your safe returns and sends his remorse for your plight."

Esmeralda nodded to the ground.

"Well then. Follow us now, there's a feast awaiting you all!" he said offering his hand to group.

Bernier shrugged as the men helped the women out of the room, "You're expecting me to believe that Le Roux was freed from that fine Palace of Justice and was able to find his way to the Court of Miracles?"

The man smiled giving the boy a hand as he leapt from the concealed room.

"You are a gypsy traveling across many miles to find the Court of Miracle, non?"

Bernier nodded a tad uncommitted.

"Well then, my brother," said Andre placing a hand on his shoulder, "you must start believing in miracles."

The group of gypsies said their thanks to the kindly Miller family who let stay the night before making their way to a mule drawn caravan awaiting them.

"Tell me how it was done," asked Celina to the Andre clutching his arm. "Tell me how my husband lives."

The man looked to her pleading eyes as the others jumped into the caravan.

"It was Clopin – the man we look to as our king and a few of his most trusted men who saved your husband from the noose earlier today."

She gasped shaking her head, "They put themselves… in that danger?"

He nodded helping her into the carriage. "Oui mademoiselle, and you can thank him yourself in about an hour." With that, he closed the door and made his way to the front beside the driver.

"Well," began Bernier as they sat comfortably in the wagon. "Welcome to Paris. I feel like the damned King himself!" he glanced to Esmeralda who had been quiet. "Speaking of kings..."

She glanced to him, meeting his mischievous gaze with her own deadly one.

"He'll remember me once we meet. I have no doubts," she said curtly.

The bothersome young man shrugged, "People forget things, mon cher."

"Not so easily they don't. Besides, you don't even know him."

"No, I 'spose I don't. What's the ol' bastard like?"

The others seemed to take interest in their conversation as well. Esmeralda looked back to her lap.

"When I was a member of the Court he was... well he was Clopin. He had a friend in every passing face, the eldest of a line of siblings and prepared to take control of the Court of Miracles after his father. He had many talents, story telling, singing, dancing..." she smirked, "among other things. He was never without a smile. Always seeking the center of attention. And he loves a good party."

"Sounds like a right man," said Bernier pleased.

Celina shifted her gaze from out the window to Esmeralda.

"Is he very handsome, the king?"

Esmeralda looked to her for a moment. It was the first time she had spoken to her. All she knew of Celina was that Rabel Le Roux had found her wandering lost and far from home. He took a liking to her. Since she was in needing a home and obviously a foreigner he decided to take her as a wife.

"I think he's just an all around charming man to be in the company of. You'll see for yourself."

"And," asked Bernier clearing his throat, "how are the women of this hidden kingdom?"

Esmeralda rolled her eyes.

*if you'd like some more, please review :)