JMJ

CHAPITRE UN:

The foam frothing from the freshly poured mug seemed for just a moment to resemble some foul beast, and the barmaid blinked in alarm. It was her own fancy, of course, but the only explanation she could give for the oddity of staring intently at foam were the exciting stories of beasts and haunted castles revolving in the tavern of late. Stories revolved as they would with drunkards and story tellers alike, but the only thing that was upsetting about it recently was that these tales had some truth to them. She had come to grieve the town hero too, for what girl had not loved Gaston? Save perhaps the odd girl from out of town.

Both of these famous people were soon named by a man among the company to whom she served the new drink.

"—two celebrities from our little town!" the man said. "Little Belle who has married Prince Adam upon his timely return to the castle, and Gaston, may he rest in peace, who slayed the beast and freed the castle and the land from its oppressive grip!"

"We always knew our boy Gaston would be famous one day," agreed the bar tender.

"Ain't it the truth!?"

"Long life to the princess and long honor to Gaston's memory!"

Everyone agreed with a shout and drank from their mugs, yet one hesitated and said, "Too bad he had to die for it."

"Heroes have to die to become heroes, though," said the barkeeper in a practical sort of way.

"C'est la vie!" agreed the one who had made the toast.

"Si!"

The oldest member of the group pounded the table with his fist.

"We were all there that night," he said. "The whole castle was alive with that terrible curse. If it had not been for Gaston the prince would have never been able to return!"

"It must have been a battle ferocious for both Gaston and the beast to fall together to their demise," said the sadder-toned man.

The old man's son added, "The only witness from what I know was the princess herself, but I haven't heard what she had to say about it."

"Well, it was probably too bloody and wild an event to speak of," someone advised curtly. "Even if she was as tough as she acted."

"Ah! She probably loved it, knowing her!" exclaimed a rather goofy little voice as a strange little form leapt up onto the closest available stool to the company up at the bar. LeFou laughed. "Pfft! The only legendary beast ever seen in our provincial town against the likes of the strongest, smartest, fastest—well, you know! Gaston! It must have been like Shakespeare wrote about King Arthur versus Achilles!"

The moodier fellow gave LeFou a strange look, but most of the others laughed.

"How 'bout another toast!" LeFou went on pounding his fist merrily upon the counter. "Hey, barkeeper, I wanna drink."

"You never paid for the last one," the barkeeper pointed out.

LeFou grinned. "Hey, C'mon, Florent! They're on the house."

"We've been over this." The barkeeper rolled his eyes. "I can't give every Tom, Dick, and Stanley who used to know Gaston a free beer. I'd be out of business."

"But I didn't just know him!" LeFou complained. "I was Gaston's right-hand man!" His thrust his hands to his chest dramatically.

"Just get a job like everyone else," muttered the barkeeper, eyes half-closed as he wiped out an empty mug. "I'd hire you here, but besides the fact that you're already known for having a terrible inability to restrain yourself from getting drunk on everyone else's beer, I don't have room right now. Go find Monsieur Humbert. He's respectable."

"Right-hand man!" LeFou emphasized all the further.

"More like right hand spaniel," laughed the man who had made the original toast.

"Right," agreed another man after a slug. "He told me himself that he didn't need a dog when he already had LeFou to go and retrieve his kills, and he was far more dependable." He turned to the barkeeper while his audience laughed. "More beer for me by the way!"

LeFou made a face, but ignoring the jeerers he pressed the barkeeper once more. "Just one beer?"

"Not unless someone's gunna pay for it," the barkeeper retorted.

No one volunteered, and LeFou got the hint. Now that Gaston was gone, he was not wanted around here. The others now had a chance to show just envious they had been that Gaston had favored LeFou's company above anyone else's. If they wanted to be petty, he would let them. Scooting from his stool rather disgruntled, LeFou made for the swinging doors, but just before he exited with his hand still on one door he paused once more to say, "I was Gaston's right-hand man, you know!"

The bar goers only laughed the more.

He could not tell whether the jeering was aimed at him or not, but he had already moved on from the tavern in his mind. Crossing the town square, he eyed the passing of a farmer bringing a pair of pigs to the butchers, and he tried to ignore the rumbling in his stomach for ham.

He had lived off the fame of Gaston for so long and had lived so easily that now that he had nothing and did nothing he realized he was poverty stricken. How long would it take before his new coat became rags and made him look the part?

Sure, he had been given things to eat and drink in a sort of consolation after the news of Gaston's death.

There was many a hand which let him have a meal and a few drinks in exchange for stories of the haunted castle and the great fight between Gaston and the beast, which he concocted from the facts he did know and witness with what just came on as embellishment.

Monsieur du Point, father of the triplets Lisette, Laurette, and Lilou, invited him to dinner a few times. Du Point respected his position at Gaston's right-hand even if he was not the only one invited, and the girls practically used him as their handkerchief the way they cried upon him. Although soaked and quite miserable himself he enjoyed the attention and the food. Except that Laurette at the last dinner started to blame LeFou and the other guys for not sticking it out at the castle, but her parents quickly pointed out that they could not be blamed for that.

Before that he had been a sort of guest of honor at Gaston's funeral as he made the speech and sat next to Gaston's own mother; though the misery he had felt there had not made for a good appetite. He had drank an awful lot that evening, feeling the full weight of the death, missing his … well, friend he supposed he should call him, but somehow that was not quite the right word. He would almost have called Gaston his master, but he did not like to think of himself as a servant. Chief, maybe. Yeah! That sounded good. The death of his chief nearly broke his heart, but now?

He seated himself on the edge of the fountain in the center of the square. Turning around he stared miserably into the water, and it annoyed him to see that sulky face of his staring back at him. A person should not look so miserable. It was not fair.

"Let's face it," LeFou muttered leaning his elbows on his knees and slumping his chin into his hands. "I'm nothing without Gaston."

He turned back around and sighed, but he did not feel the influence of uncertainty for long, for suddenly like a thunderbolt an idea flashed into his mind.

"I know!" he exclaimed. "I'll go see Pop! He's respectable. He won't send me away. He's family!"

There was nothing left for him here in this little town without Gaston, and he hated being constantly reminded of his untimely death. Thus taking what little he had into a satchel on a stick like a boy running off for the circus, he took his leave of the little town with a bright smile on his face and a bounce in his step. Once he started down the road the thought of looking back did not even cross his mind in the usual sanguine manner that possessed his spirit.

It did not take more than a day or so to reach the city, especially when hitching a ride on the back of a wagon. He was so small that no one noticed him; though the driver did notice that his lunch had gone missing. Small though LeFou was he had a downright gluttonous appetite most of the time.

The bustling crowds and grand city buildings distracted him with each new sight and sound. It was no Paris or Marseille, but it was a descent sized town far bigger than the village he was from. He might have liked city life had it not been for the fact that it was far more difficult to get away with doing nothing here than in a fruitful countryside village unless you were a highly independently wealthy individual. Thus the crowds acted the part. They were very busy and few seemed to know anyone else save at their destinations. There certainly was no time for singing at any rate.

In a side street away from the excitement, he came to a small home crammed in between two others. It was not much to look at, but it certainly was not squalid.

Without a thought, he strolled up to the door with his little pack on a stick adjusted over his shoulder, but just before he knocked his cheery spirits were halted by the sound of a bang from the inside. With a quizzical frown he paused, but after a second bang, LeFou merely knocked anyway. The only answer he received was a sort of snarling sound and a third bang as something breaking. Pressing his ear to the door he listened to some indecipherable shouting as well and some thumping and thrashing, and shattering glass.

Hesitating with fingers twiddling at his sides, LeFou simply took hold of the knob and began to open it a crack for a peak, but before he could see anything, the door was snatched violently away from him and hit him right in the nose.

"Ouch!"

"Guillaume!"

As LeFou held his throbbing nose, the young woman spoke again uneasily from now a mere crack in the door so that one could barely see her eyes staring out.

"Uh, Guillaume. What are you doing here?"

"I live here!" said LeFou.

"No, you don't."

Another crash sounded behind her.

"Well, Pop lives here," said LeFou, and he paused. "It sounds like a bear in there? Is Pop okay?"

"Don't!" cried the woman. "You can't come in!"

"Claudie!" LeFou complained.

She slammed the door shut. More bangs and growls followed inside and the voice of Claudie crying, "No! Wait!"

With caution now, LeFou crept up to the window to see for himself what was going on.

Climbing onto a pile of wood to reach the pane, he looked, and instantly he wished he had not. For what he saw stared right back at him, and it was not a friendly stare by any means. Huge, piercing, furious, they were the eyes of something far worse and unnatural than a bear; it red scaly skin reflected in those eyes to make it seem as though they were downright glowing with hatred. The beast from the castle could not have looked more daunting, and only a second later it reached out a clawed paw bigger than LeFou's head.

The window was no barrier.

Dropping his stick, LeFou let out a scream and immediately swung around to run the other way, but he did not get far. The claws clamped right over his head with the grip of a machine. He only had time for an awkward squeak before he was snatched through the window and into the house. He felt that he would be swallowed up in a second, but he was thrown away from the gnashing teeth and into unconsciousness.

#

First there was a throbbing sensation and a pain in the back of his head and in his spine. The sound of dripping water came next, and as LeFou felt the cloth upon his head he began to moan bitterly. He was lying in between two arms of an armchair. One arm his head rested upon like a pillow, but he was not quite short enough to keep his outstretched legs from being pushed upward by the opposite arm. He pulled his knees into himself and his head stooped further down along the side of the first arm.

"Guillaume? Are you feeling okay?"

Hearing a familiar voice and feeling consciousness coming fully upon him, he let out another more purposeful moan to display his pain to call pity upon him. Though pain was not exactly a thing that had ever hampered him in the past, he wallowed in it now with a nurse above his head and confusion swirling up inside his brain and none of the guys to see. In full melodrama he flung one hand upon the wet cloth on his forehead and his other hand over his stomach and curled his legs in tighter.

"What happened?" he croaked.

Claudie took the cloth from LeFou's head out from under his hand. She was a short, round, and rather odd-looking little woman, but not nearly as short, round, and silly looking as LeFou was. Her demeanor was a lot more respectable too.

"Sh-sh-sh …" she said softly. "Calm down, Guillaume."

"Oh," LeFou groaned, turning around then onto his stomach to lean over the side of the arm. He rubbed his head hard. "I had this weird dream. There was this dragon and—" He pushed up on the arm into something like a sitting position.

The whole downstairs was in tatters. The chair itself looked as if it had been tousled up a little before someone had put it upright. A table was upside down. The bowl Claudie was using to wet her rag was on top of a trunk on its side. The walls were scarred; a small etching in a frame was titled nearly diamond shaped and the glass was cracked. The rug on the floor was a bit ragged but like the chair had been pushed back into position at the hearth.

"Claudie?" he said throwing his head around him in alarm. "Was there really a dragon in here?"

Claudie put her hands on her hips and frowned. "What makes you ask something like that?"