Summary: If she would not come willingly to him at the threshold of heaven, then he would pursue her into hell… Frollo visits Esmeralda in her prison. Oneshot.

Esmeralda sleeps in her prison. Frollo gets… handsy.

Novel based (takes place in Book Eighth: Lasciate Ogni Speranza - Leave All Hope Behind, Ye Who Enter Here) although I've endowed Frollo with some characteristics from his rather nastier Disney counterpart. Namely raging hypocrisy.

But oh it must be burnt! alas the fire
Of lust and envie have burnt it heretofore,
And made it fouler; Let their flames retire,
And burne me o Lord, with a fiery zeale
Of thee and thy house, which doth in eating heale.
(John Donne, Holy Sonnet V)

"Why then have you tempted me? I was firm as a man could be till I saw those eyes and that mouth again - surely there never was such a maddening mouth since Eve's!" His voice sank, and a hot archness shot from his own black eyes. "You temptress, Tess; you dear damned witch of Babylon - I could not resist you as soon as I met you again!"
(Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'urbervilles)

As in this furnace God shall try my faith,
My faith, vile hell, shall triumph over thee.
(Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus, Scene XIII)

UNHOLY FLAMES

The studded iron trapdoor swung open with a rusted groan as the guard permitted him to enter the dismal hold where they had flung the prisoner. Dom Claude quietly placed the lantern at the top of the mouldering steps, the shuttered light flickering low and intermittently. Its ghastly illumination caused gargantuan shadows to crawl up and down the narrow walls.

The door closed with a dull clang behind him. He was barely aware of it. One hand on the damp and crumbling mortar, the tall and narrow form of the priest moved like a spectre through the confining space, hooded and shrouded and silent. No sound but the drip and echo of water, endlessly magnified in the hollow cell. He lifted his robes, an expression of distaste crossing his austere features as made his way down the dimly-lit steps. The interior was cold as a sepulchre. The dirt and stone floor awash with dank water.

He reached the bottom of the steps, and the blackness swallowed him in its obscurity. But for the weakly flickering lantern, all about him was night, and the coldness was the chill of the grave. A shudder ran through him. This was a wretched place for any soul to be condemned. But her -!

The once merry and light-footed dancer lay huddled on the floor in torn garments, still as a corpse. Limbs sprawled in disorder, a tumble of black hair lost in the surrounding darkness.

She is dead, was his first wild thought.

His severe, high-boned face turned pale as death. Icy hands clutched at his chest, nails rending the self-inflicted wound into bloody gashes. Warm dampness seeped through the breast of his robes. The world receded into darkness.

Wait -

With an inhuman effort, the priest swallowed down the palpitating constrictions of his heart, listening carefully. The sound of deep, slow breathing filled the darkened prison. Not dead, but asleep. The archdeacon breathed again. And crept closer.

She had cried herself to sleep, her face half-covered by her wild hair. Her garments were ragged. Silk and tasselled embroidery soiled by rough handling and the dampness of the subterranean prison she lay in. Even in the dim light, he could see the bruised swelling of her slender ankle where the instrument of iron torture had cut into the tender flesh. Horror rose within him, but stronger still was the acute consciousness of her being laid out before him, innocent, exposed, and entirely unaware of his presence.

Claude Frollo drew a harsh breath, drinking in the sight of her with flaming eyes. His thin, long-boned fingers tightened convulsively around the bible clutched in his hands, but never had he given the word of God less thought than in that moment. Those embers that slept uneasily in her absence were lit again, the blood in his veins boiling to quicksilver. Turning flesh of stone to liquid fire. And he felt his body not as a holy vessel, but as a prison -

La Esmeralda.

The name left his lips with an agonised groan, lingering like the echoes of an organ chime in the dimly hollowed chamber.

What devil's alchemy had she stirred in his blood? What maddening elixir was it that flowed through his veins? This wild, heady, potent brew that possessed the mind and inflamed the senses -

His mouth was dry. Tormented by the recollections of her on the streets below, dancing with Dionysian abandon, wild as a Fury. Sensuality and magic and madness possessed that body, light as air, darting as fire. A salamander, a chimera, eyes flashing with diabolical passion. Such witchery in her burning gaze! Searing his mind with brands of fire. In that instant, he had been lost.

His heart that had formerly been clothed with the blessed light of heavenly radiance now throbbed and burned with diabolical cravings. He, who had always stood aloof from women, scorned them and the weakness they inspired in lesser men. There was but one woman he had idealised: the Blessed Virgin, whom he had reverently adored with a chaste, soulful passion. His Notre Dame.

And now -!

He began to pace around her prone form, his mind working furiously.

Just to look upon this gypsy girl was a fatal profanation, a vile blaspheming of the soul. It was beyond doubt that she was an agent of the Evil One sent to torment him, for such earthly beauty was made only to elevate a man or destroy him. And that goat! A cursed familiar, surely. A diabolical beast with the horns of the devil. He was certain of this.

But the evil was done. He would never be free of the sight or sound of her. In the night she danced through his dreams like wildfire, by day, her image was all he saw in his prayers.

If he could only go back to those days when he had been at peace with himself, when there was justice in his heart and conviction in his soul! And now those high and pure ideals had withered to ash. How his careless, sensual brother would laugh to see him reduced thus!

His hands rent his thinning hair. Was this a punishment? A penalty? The price he must pay for courting the dark alchemical arts as he had?

If that were so, he would overturn his Faustian studio in an instant, destroy the cluttered paraphernalia worthy of magi, and grind it into dust. What did he care for it now? The insatiable desire for knowledge had faded in the wake of a desire more insatiable still - that for the flesh of another.

But it was not his fault.

He had nothing to reproach himself. His motives for being here were pure and noble. Was not the gilt-bound bible held reverently in his hands sufficient proof of that?

It was his duty to save this wretched and pitiful creature, so lost, so fallen. Surely fate had delivered her to him at this critical juncture. This was what he was made for. Cloaked in robes of righteousness, the word of God speaking through him. It was just, it was meant. He would raise her from the brink of damnation. It was not too late. The gates of heaven could yet receive her. If she renounced all else, abandoned the debauched streets, the vice and depravity with which she surrounded herself, and trusted in him alone, she could be saved. If she would only succumb and place herself wholly in his power, he could ensure her salvation. And what demonstrations of gratitude might she choose to bestow on him once he did…

She could not refuse him. Not one so sweet and compassionate, not one so full of pity for the sufferings of others -

Oh God, if she could but have pity on him, he would be her slave! He would adore her. Venerate her as a mortal idol and cast adulations upon her lustrous dark hair, her bewitching eyes, the flawless perfection of her copper skin (thou shalt not worship false idols) - she could not spurn such a love, surely she must fall upon his mercy -

No.

He must fall upon hers.

The choice lay with her. He would be her saviour, or her executioner. He would prefer the former. But he was not afraid to carry out the latter, if he must.

A ghastly cold seized his heart. The thought of the flames eating away at her body, reducing everything she was to ash and bone, that beauty charred away to smouldering cinders…

Could he do it? Even one tortured scream from her in the Hall of Justice had been too much for him to endure. His breast still ached from the wound he had inflicted upon himself. And all for a sorceress.

But what a sorceress!

Claude Frollo continued to gaze down at the sleeping girl lustfully. The gypsy's body trembled, as though even in the depths of slumber, she was somehow aware of the eyes feasting ravenously on her flesh.

The remnants of tears still lingered on the heavy black lashes that swept cheeks smooth as beaten gold. Hair fanned around that lovely face in varying shades of midnight, the elusive lantern rays weaving threads of copper through its edges. One shapely limb appeared through the gauzy folds of her gown. In spite of their rent state, the floating garments clung like fine drapery around her naked shoulders. Virginal innocence and exotic passion quivered tantalisingly, coexisting within that exquisite frame.

The archdeacon fell to his knees before this vision of sinful perfection. The cold stone floor seared like a blade, even through the heavy, voluminous folds of his robes. Beneath hooded lids, his eyes smouldered.

Oh, why must man be an earthly creature? Why must the soul be bound within the body? He was cruelly shackled to this torturous prison of flesh that raged and thirsted and burned in solitude. Plaguing him with wild, vivid imaginings -

God, but to lay his hands on that expanse of smooth skin, bronzed by the heat of foreign suns from wherever her rovings had taken her (and the Lord said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it…)

The mere contemplation of her charms writhed him into a frenzy of earthly paradise. But to touch her - God almighty!

He could not. He would not.

It would not come to pass. He would not allow it. Fate may try and hold him in its clutches, but he would escape her yet. His icy fingers clenched and convulsed.

Amid darkness and flame, an abyss had opened before him. And never had threshold of eternal damnation seemed so sweet -

The archdeacon's mind reeled, staggered, plagued by visions of the world to come. Arms outstretched, as though already grappling with the demons that sought to drag him to the brink. This was the time of crisis. Why then had the Saviour forsaken him in the moment of his most desperate trial? He closed his eyes and still her image was before him, burning, maddening. No torture could be worse than this.

How could man resist such temptation? He, who would have stood resolute and unflinching against all the legions of hell, was undone by this mere slip of a girl. Righteous fury was no weapon against supple limbs and soft words and bewitching scents. The Evil One himself must have placed this being before him. A demon clothed in earthly flesh.

And still he wanted her.

How he had attempted to beat down those flames that consumed him hour by hour. Yet Claude Frollo realised, to his own dismay, that man was not a being of spirit, but of fire. Those hellish brands burned within him, shuddering through his rigid frame, licking his vitals -

But she -!

She would abate the flames that burned within him... or she would face a greater fire. She would burn for eternity. Wild hope, mingled with cold despair, seized him. Would her death purge him of this… sickness? Would this spell die with her earthly body or would the fever merely rise, ever hotter, until it finally consumed him? For what satisfaction could the cold and austere rites of the Church give him now? Only duty, stern and heartless. How chill and bare the stones of the altar seemed when one had known the heat of tormented passion! To endure that would be worse than death. He would almost rather follow her into the abyss.

A shiver ran down Dom Claude's spine. His expression became sombre, a shadow falling over the hollowed contours of his grave, pallid face. Miserere mei, Deus. His head, bowed and penitent, almost dashed against the flagstones in mute wretchedness. What horrendous blasphemies had she reduced him to?

Yet surely the greater the crime, all the more exalted the moment of forgiveness? Small misdemeanours could not compare to the sublime purification his soul would receive once he sought penitence for the wickedness of profaning his hands on female flesh. One act of evil for endless absolution. A cleansing of holy fire. He would confess all and revel in his shame. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

But was the fault of it truly his? For had she not chosen to lie in such a position like a brazen harlot? Look at her, stretched across the stone floor with nothing but the tattered remnants of her gypsy rags to cover her false modesty. Had the girl any true modesty, she would have covered her sinful body, cowered in the darkest corner and concealed herself from prying eyes. But instead, with her mocking witch mind, she had twisted her shamelessness into making him feel the reprehensible one. Oh, cunning is the serpent! Relentless is its guile!

No. He would not fall for her mocking tricks or the tantalising attitudes she chose to assume in reclining so pliantly before him… He was above such base debaucheries. It was a weakness of the flesh, nothing more. He would prove that he had nothing to fear from himself. Resolution filled him. He would lay his hands on that warm, soft body, and it would not stir him. Thus, by confronting the temptation, he would conquer it.

His hood fell back, revealing a gaunt face carved deep with shadows. Only the eyes were alive, and they burned.

She had done for him. This Eve, this maddening temptress. This cunning Delilah.

He struggled, strained -

The light from the lantern guttered, the wick burning low. The encroaching darkness hid him from his own folly. A shadow looming over her, bone-pale hands outstretched. It was a wonder she did not wither under his burning glance -

The battle was lost. Adam had met his downfall thus, undone by a woman. As had Samson. The workings of destiny had led him to this moment. It was written. That same word, scratched into endless pages, carved in the walls of his mind -

ANArKH… ANArKH… ANArKH…

- fate, fate, FATE -

And the priest laid his unsullied hands upon the sleeping girl.

At that fatal, fleeting touch, his entire being reeled. Embers scorched through and through him. Oh, such agony! Such torturous bliss!

The beguiling softness of her gold-hued skin almost drove him into a frenzy. Hands that had touched only the dry pages of scholarly texts now hungrily sought the contours of that unconscious body. Her skin, icy-cold, started to warm beneath his seeking fingers. The pulse fluttered in her throat like a frightened bird. But she had brought this upon herself; the very embodiment of Luxuria reclining before him, her sublime form barely concealed by the tattered silk that entwined her legs, capturing her slender waist in diaphanous gauze. Her body limber, supple as the serpent. Those curves and domes of flesh shadowed beneath the translucent folds of satin, so revealed, so veiled. So forbidden.

This was a cardinal sin and he was a sinner. But he would pay for such a deadly transgression a thousand times over if it meant his hand lingering on her copper skin, to see those bewitching eyes open, flashing dark and lustrous…

His fingers, burning hot, became greedy with every exploration. Her temples were hot, inflamed with some fever, or perhaps it was merely his own heated blood he was feeling, so overwhelmed by the mysticism of femininity laid before him… she carried that strange alchemy of purity and seductiveness…

Claude Frollo touched her cheek, moving his hand down her neck. The thought of pressing his lips against her tender throat shuddered through him. A star-spangled shawl of gossamer fabric adorned her fine-boned shoulders; he pulled it aside with impatience. Tracing the delicate line of her collarbone, the hollow of her throat vulnerable and exposed beneath his searing gaze. He leaned into her neck, breathing in that strange, alluring scent. The intoxicating blend of perfume and spices. The stench of witchcraft.

He was captivated by the enveloping darkness of ebony locks, the straying edges glinting with gold in the frail light. Weaving strands of dark magic. The thought of burying his face in that scented mass elicited a groan from those pale lips that in thirty-six years had never kissed with anything other than filial duty or penitential rites. Even as the delicious impulse thrilled through him, the gypsy tossed her dark head, moaning softly. Small brown hands unconsciously clutched at the rent fabric that barely covered her, as though trying to preserve the last vestiges of her innocence. He wondered what she dreamed. Was it his face she saw emblazoned behind her closed lids, as hers came to visit him nightly?

Then those lips moved, uttering two soft syllables in faint distress.

"Phoebus…"

The archdeacon froze.

Breath hissed out between his teeth. His expression turned wild, granite lit from within by unhealthy fires. He was shaking with rage.

It had been a fatal blow when he had discovered her mummery of a marriage to the poet Gringoire, but this! Always the soldier! A memory flashed across his mind of that nocturnal scene he had clandestinely witnessed; the innocent girl submitting to the ardent caresses of her golden-haired captain. And thus one sin led to another. Lust had awakened covetousness, covetousness had awakened envy, and so wrath had followed swift on its heels. And the demon of pride whispered in his ear that such a gilded fool was not worthy of her affections. He shuddered to think of it. The madness that had seized him when the poniard descended, the hot gush of blood - ! Ah! Thinking of it would drive him mad -

It mattered not. The captain was dead; Dom Claude was certain of that. Yet he had stolen from the infatuated girl the kisses that should have been his. Phoebus had touched that young body and made La Esmeralda tremble and sigh beneath his coarse hands while he watched in writhing jealousy -

Anger, vast as black storm clouds, rolled over the priest. He was possessed by that burning kiss he had stolen from her parted lips while she swooned, bathed in the blood of her foolish paramour. The fiery lightning he tasted as he pressed his mouth to hers - those lips that had lured him with the lulling siren of their song as she danced him to insanity…

To taste, once more, that arcane magic that would see him damned -

The dark, ornate robes pooled around Claude Frollo's kneeling form as he lowered his head to his unconscious prey. She lay still, like a sacrificial victim on the stone slabs. There would be no resistance.

His pale fingers entwined in an ebony curl. Smoothing back that shining black hair, coils of silk made to entwine a man in his own sin, in his own madness… He scraped his teeth against her ear, his breath a rasp of metal… a marvel she did not wake…

And at last, he found that sweet, pliant mouth. Oh, how it scorched him! Quicksilver melding them together, fire on his lips and damnation in his soul -

One taste was not enough - he must have her forever.

Those eyes which roved restlessly beneath her closed lids, the smooth brow to which dark strokes of hair clung in damp tendrils, the cheeks which still glinted with unconsciously shed tears… these must all be his. His lips were pressing rapid and fevered kisses to her skin like licks of flame -

That innocent form shuddered in the darkness, in his maddened state, the priest did not notice. Only the sound of his own harsh breathing in his ears. Trembling, he tugged at the flimsy silk of her dress, exposing more bare skin to his wild eyes, the smooth slope of her shoulders, the elegant line of her collarbone, the rise and fall of her breasts beneath his tentative fingers… Jesu…!

He must and would possess her -

Heat roaring inside him like a furnace. A passion so intense, so devoted, so consuming - no, it could not have been given in vain! He would have her. If she would not come willingly to him at the threshold of heaven, then he would pursue her into hell. Either way, she would be his. If he could not bind her to him willingly, he would possess her amid fire and darkness, amid fury and despair -

At once he seized her, lifting her prone form in his arms - her long dark hair streamed over his shoulders in magnificent disarray and the priest choked with furious desire - but he realised at once that he had grown too bold in his caresses, for that formerly still frame was stirring into wakefulness, the regularity of breathing turned unsteady and erratic -

The archdeacon dropped her at once, as though scorched by the brand of red-hot iron. The life that was returning to her restlessly moving body struck through him like a fearful omen, a profound judgement. Retreating across the narrow cell, the wavering light of the lantern at his back, he watched beneath lowered lids as she slowly awakened. With a swift movement, he drew the hood back over his face, the concealing folds shrouding his blazing features.

A choked gasp escaped the gypsy as she came to consciousness only to find herself in darkness. Perhaps she had known some blessed relief in those few hours of deathlike sleep that had allowed her to forget the horror of her situation. Slowly, dazedly, she appeared to grope herself into a sitting position. Dom Claude did not remove his eyes from her for a single moment. Silent words, curses, entreaties fell from his stony and unmoving lips.

- I cannot preach - I cannot sleep! Be mine and end this madness… Just one drop of compassion into my burning heart is all I ask! Oh God! How do I love thee? I love thee to despair, to damnation -

The girl raised her head and her confused eyes met the deep, sullen, burning ones of the priest. Those beautiful lips trembled.

"Who are you?"

Review or face the fires of hell. No, really.