Work Text:
“Would you like to see some magic?”
It is a strange thing to ask, although everything has been terrifying and strange for Louis these past two years or so. This man at least, despite his strangeness, seems less frightening than ‘Papa’ Duval and Monsieur Fouquet. So he nods, and the man picks him up from the basket he’s been hiding in and sets him on the ground.
“All right then. Watch this.”
The man blows on each hand, and then, to Louis’s surprise, pulls not one but two handkerchiefs from his mouth. It changes the whole shape of his face.
The man nods at him, and his face transforms further, the dull-witted lackey disappearing before Louis’s eyes. “Let that be a lesson to you, sir. Never take anyone for granted.”
His accent has changed as much as his face, the previous vowels of the poorest of Parisien peasants abandoned in favour of a French that would not have sounded amiss in the glittering ballrooms of Versailles. And Louis smiles, feeling something he didn’t think he’d ever find again.
Hope.
***
It takes several minutes before Louis even registers something else the gentleman -- for he must, at least, be a gentleman -- had said. Sir. How long has it been since anyone called Louis by such an honorific and not boy or brat or, on a good day, lad? That Baron, Louis supposes, as he idly fingers the gentlemen’s discarded bonnet rouge and its tricolore cockade, called him ‘Your Royal Highness’ when he’d visited however long ago that had been. But Louis couldn’t then and can’t now be sure if the ‘baron’ had been sincere in his respect or just another trick used to mock his fall from pampered prince to penniless orphan.
This gentleman’s ‘sir’ rings true because of its simplicity. Despite his obvious skill with deception, Louis hears no lie in his words. He also believed him, despite his appearance and the odds, when he’d said Louis would soon be free if he merely got into a basket. That particular belief has been proven true in less than an hour, for here Louis is, sitting out in fresh air for the first time in months instead of breathing the filthy miasma of his prison.
The gentleman, while Louis has been thinking, has further transformed himself, removing his dark wig and even the scar across his nose. He still wears his ragged and stained clothes, but the gold watch he keeps checking definitely does not match his outfit, nor did the small snuff box he’d pulled out of the top of his dirty stocking, used briefly, and then replaced. The gentleman is distressed by something, Louis can tell, but he hasn’t yet worked up the courage to ask what it is they’re waiting for.
Whatever it is, they’ve waited too long, because suddenly, there’s the thunder and whinies of galloping horses approaching on the road behind them and Louis’s hope once more turns to fear.
“Down on the floor, sir,” the gentleman orders, and Louis doesn’t even consider disobeying. “Looks like we’re in for a run.”
Louis cowers in between the legs of tables and chairs as the gentleman starts the carthorse with a firm “Git up!” His terror increases as a shot is fired and the basket that was his means of escape is knocked off the cart. He clings to the back of the gentlemen’s driving seat for dear life.
Louis can’t see how far back the soldiers are, but the gentleman’s face is grim as he glances behind them and then turns forward again, urging the horse to go faster.
He doesn’t know how long they run like this, the gentlemen checking over his shoulder repeatedly. The rumbling of the cart is becoming stronger the longer they run; Louis can feel it vibrating through every bone in his body from his toes up to his clenched teeth.
Then another shot is fired, and the pained cry of the gentleman tells Louis that something far more important than Madame Duval’s furniture has been hit. The cart swerves, and then Louis is also crying out as it tilts and a wheel comes off. He curls into a ball as he’s hurled into the dirt, landing at first on something soft and then rolling onto harder ground.
He’s bruised and battered when he comes to a stop. There’s a second of stillness, perhaps two, and then an agonised groan from beside him is followed by the clench of a hand around his upper arm. He’s pulled to his feet, too fast to be gentle, and doesn’t have time to catch his bearings before he’s being dragged forward. “Quickly, sir. With me!”
He’s hardly going to argue that, and so he runs. It’s hard to keep up, for the gentleman’s legs are much longer than Louis’s. But fear of being caught hastens Louis’s stride, and it only gets stronger when a voice calls out from the road they’ve just left, “Right. Spread out and search the woods! They can’t have gone far.”
The gentleman stumbles, just once, and almost pulls Louis down with him. A soft “damn it” is exhaled though clenched teeth, and Louis, despite the chaos of their flight, is surprised to hear the English curse. He’d detected no trace of a foreign tongue in either of the gentleman’s French accents, lowborn or high. But he has no time to dwell on the mystery as the gentleman, upon recovery, spies a large hollow tree.
They clamber up inside it, first the gentleman, who braces his back on one side and his feet against the other and shimmies up, pulling Louis up behind him to sit in his lap. His face is ashen, Louis notices once they’re settled. A glance down shows blood flowing in rivlets over the bare skin of his forearm and down to his leather bracer.
The gentleman notices the direction of Louis’s gaze and his lip curls up. He brings the index finger of his good hand to his lips, not that Louis needs that instruction, and then peers through a small hole in the tree, presumably to check the progress of their pursuers.
His right hand is shaking, where it’s holding Louis loosely, and his left lies lax behind Louis’s back. He has to be in pain. Louis has never been shot but he can’t imagine it doesn’t hurt something fierce. When he looks hard enough, can see the gentleman’s pulse in his neck and his chest rising and falling in shallow breaths, but he’s otherwise still and silent as he watches whatever he can see through his peephole.
There’s a gentle breeze, and Louis closes his eyes and savours it, trying to quiet his breathing and his very heartbeat to match. If the gentleman can be this quiet despite being shot, then so can Louis. He can hear the soldiers approaching, the stomp of hooves in the grass, the squeak of leather and clang of metal as they move. They speak to one another, harsh voices carrying over the breeze. “Nothing here” and “what about over there?” and “where the devil did they go?”
Louis opens his eyes and stares off into the forest. It’s green here. Fresh. He’s glad he got to see something natural beyond the dark walls of his cell, however this turns out.
But then a voice calls “They must have crossed the river. Search the other side!”, and the sounds of the soldiers nearing them retreat.
The gentleman nods at him, and helps Louis out of his lap. Louis slides down the tree and then turns to watch as the gentlemen, with great difficulty and a tight clench in his jaw, does the same. He leans wearily against the trunk for a moment, and then peers around it. It’s then that Louis sees the source of his blood, for there’s a dark spreading stain of it on his upper back, near his left shoulder, the brown of his tunic and vest deepening nearer to black.
His wound aside, the gentleman must be satisfied with what he sees beyond the tree, for he turns back to Louis and guides him onward into the forest with a hand on his shoulder.
They run a short distance, but the gentlemen stumbles again, this time actually falling. His cry of pain is muted, but Louis still looks around fearfully in case the soldiers have somehow heard. There’s no alert sounded, though. No cry from beyond the trees, and so Louis concentrates on helping the gentleman back to his feet.
They make it another small distance, slower this time. But soon, the gentleman is having to stagger from tree to tree, leaning heavily on each before lurching toward the next. Louis tries to help hold him upright, but he’s too large and heavy for a boy of Louis’s size and all too soon the gentleman sinks to his knees, exhausted.
“I cannot continue,” is what he says, face twisting with the admission. He points ahead. “We’ve almost reached the planned rendezvous point. Up ahead, perhaps three to five arpents farther, is a good friend of mine, a Lord Antony Dewhurst. He’ll have horses. You must trust him and follow his direction. He will take you to safety.”
No. That’s...no. “You must come with me!”
The gentleman tries to rise. Louis can tell that he truly does try, but even with Louis helping, it’s impossible, and he crashes back to the ground.
The stifled sound that escapes his throat as he falls is terrible to hear, and Louis feels tears welling in his eyes.
“Sir, you must continue without me. We cannot fail to get you away. All will be well if you just run on and find Lord Anthony, I promise you that.”
And so Louis runs, trying to stay in a straight line as he plunges through the forest. Trying not to cry. Trying not to think about what the ‘all’ in ‘all will be well’ does and does not include.
***
Louis is still blinking back tears, and still running through trees, when he’s suddenly confronted with the barrel of a pistol. He lurches to a halt. “Don’t shoot!”
“Your Highness?” the armed man says, looking as shocked as Louis feels. He’s well dressed, looking far more like an English aristocrat than a French soldier, and the fact that he’s putting his pistol away is also reassuring. “Are you alright? Where is Armand?”
Armand. It is good to finally have the gentleman’s name. “He is hurt! Please come. I can show you where he is.”
The nobleman hesitates. “My orders are to leave with you immediately.” He looks around, like he suspects this is a trap that might close at any moment.
Louis supposes it might be, but that doesn’t mean he’s willing to go quietly and leave Armand to die. It’s that thought alone that lets Louis find the spirit he once had before the Temple and the Duvals tried to break it. “Please, sir...Lord Anthony?” he asks, unsure if he’s remembered even half of the right name or if this is even the right man.
The nobleman nods and Louis breathes a sigh of relief that at least something is as it should be.
“I will not leave willingly without Armand. It will be just as quick for you to come help him as it will be to force me onto a horse.”
He’s not sure that’s true, honestly. He’s always been a small child compared to his peers, and he thinks perhaps months of poor quality prison food has made that worse, even with Duval’s ‘medicine’. A healthy man of Lord Anthony’s size would probably not have much difficulty hauling him up on a horse even if he fought. But his bluff seems to work as Lord Anthony wavers.
“Please, sir,” Louis adds for good measure. “He’s been shot.”
That does it. Lord Anthony turns and unties the horses from the trees they’re attached to. “Take me to him.”
***
“My God!” Lord Anthony exclaims in English as he falls to his knees beside the gentleman’s still form. “Percy?”
Percy? Not Armand?
“T’ny?” Armand...Percy...the gentleman asks, voice strained. “What?”
“My dear chap,” Lord Anthony soothes, easing him up so he’s resting against the trunk of a tree. “What have you done to yourself?”
“Failed to dodge a bullet,” the gentleman replies, eyes fluttering open. “I do not recommend the experi—” He breaks off as his gaze meets Louis’s. Then he turns sharply to Lord Anthony. “You’re supposed to have him halfway to the coast by now! Blast it, Tony!”
“It is not his fault, Monsieur,” Louis says, his English clumsy as he hasn’t had a reason to use it for what has to be more than a year. “I would not leave you.”
The gentleman’s expression softens when he glances again at Louis, but his glare for Lord Anthony remains angry.
Lord Anthony smiles grimly under the reprimand. “It’s your own fault, Percy. You’re far too good at engendering loyalty. Can you stand?”
“If I could stand, I wouldn’t have sent the bloody Dauphin of France off alone through the woods to find you.” Despite his harsh words, he shifts to get a foot under himself, pushing up and into Lord Anthony’s supporting arms, with Louis belatedly stepping forward to help.
He doesn’t make much by way of sound, but Louis can tell looking at his face that the movement is agony, and the strain in Lord Anthony’s arms betrays who holds most of his weight. They stand there for a few breaths, once he’s upright, allowing him to recover until he says, into Lord Anthony’s chest, “This is mutiny, you know. Not loyalty.”
“It is both,” Lord Anthony corrects. “And you can chastise me all you wish once we’re all three safe.”
The gentleman -- Percy -- snorts softly. “Don’t think I won’t.” He lifts his head. “Armand didn’t arrive. He must be in trouble.”
Ah, that explains some of Louis’s confusion. Armand must be the person they were waiting for.
Lord Anthony twists to get Percy’s good arm over his shoulders. “We’ll send someone to see what has happened and hopefully rescue him.” He starts them forward, toward the horses. “You’re in for a most unpleasant ride, I fear.”
“Sink me, milord, perhaps I’ll just nap through it!” The lighthearted words confuse Louis, but Percy quickly sobers and says, more quietly, “We’ll head for Mont St Pierre. You’re going to have to tie me onto the horse, I’m afraid. I won’t manage to balance for long.”
“Let’s first figure out how to get you up there, shall we?” Lord Anthony says, and Louis has to admit it seems a difficult problem to solve.
***
The ride is long and uncomfortable, even as gently as Lord Tony is leading them. Louis is seated in front of him on the saddle, and while he prefers it to being locked in his cell, he’ll be glad when they reach their destination. He’s exhausted.
Lord Tony, somewhere along the way, invited Louis to drop the courtesy ‘Lord’ from his name, feeling it too formal for a child and unnecessary, given that child’s higher rank and their current location riding cross country through fields and forests far away from any other nobility who might take offense. Louis, on the other hand, has too recently been surrounded by those who’d taken away his and all his family’s rank and style, deeming him Citoyen Louis Charles Capet and then calling him ‘brat’ and ‘boy’. Keeping the title due his rescuer helps separate him in Louis’s mind from his Republican captors. Lord Tony had then sighed and decided he couldn’t argue with that, and so, in the interests of losing formality while maintaining nobility, ‘Lord Tony’ became their compromise.
Strangely enough, Louis finds he prefers just being ‘Louis’ to either ‘Your Highness’ or ‘boy’, and it takes only a bit more cajoling for Lord Tony to agree to that too.
It’s even later yet when Lord Tony lets slip that ‘Percy’ is actually ‘Sir Percy’, and Louis is strangely ashamed to have dropped a title he didn’t even know existed for this man who saved him, despite only doing so inside his own head.
Louis hasn’t had the chance to properly address Sir Percy though, as he’s long since lost consciousness. They’d managed to trot and canter a good part of the way, but eventually Sir Percy had passed out just as he said he would. He didn’t fall, thanks to the way Lord Tony had lashed him into his saddle, but his lack of balance had upset his horse and they’d had to slow to a walk for the remainder of the journey.
It’s worrisome. Louis hasn’t felt safe with anyone in a long time, not even his own family when he was still with them. Not once they’d been forced into Paris, anyway, and especially not after their failed escape attempt. He feels safe enough with Lord Tony, but Sir Percy was the first to make him feel so. The one to make him feel so.
It’s dark now, which has slowed them even more, but Louis has been able to smell the salt of the ocean in the air for the past hour or more, and the lapping of waves has since become audible as well. And then, as they crest a sandy hill, the sea can finally be seen reflecting the waxing moon and the stars in its ripples, and rising up out of it is the outline of a castle on what appears to be an island, visible mostly in its blocking of the sea and sky behind it.
“Mont St Pierre,” Lord Tony says. “We have men there who will assist us.”
Good, thinks Louis, glancing back at Sir Percy, slumped low over his horse. Good.
***
Louis is not supposed to be in his hiding place. He’s under strict orders to stay up in his rooms until Lord Tony calls for him, so that the visiting physician will have no chance to see him. They’re still in France, after all, and while there are men here to protect them, the danger of capture remains.
But the doctor is here now, and Louis must know how Sir Percy fares. He hasn’t been allowed to see him since he was cut from his horse and carried through the castle doors and up into a bedchamber set far away from the one given to Louis. He’s asked about him, but whether he speaks to Lord Tony, or the newly introduced Lord Hastings who helped him get clean and provided him with new clothes and warm food, he’s met with the same tight-lipped smile and vague assurances that all will be well.
All will be well. He hates the frustrating and meaningless phrase.
So he’s hiding, tucked behind an armoire as well as a curtain, peering out into the sitting room outside Sir Percy’s bedchamber.
It’s been hard, keeping still and listening. At times, since the doctor went in, Sir Percy’s voice has cried out in pain with the same pitch that Louis remembers hearing prisoners scream through the walls of the Temple, and he shudders at the memories that almost overwhelm him.
Lord Tony is also here, which Louis finds reassuring, although unlike Louis, he’s out in the open. Louis is sure that if he knew he wasn’t alone, he’d be far more composed, but as it is he’s been alternating between sitting in tense silence before suddenly cursing and getting up to pace from one end of the room to the other. His face goes as white as Louis’s feels whenever Sir Percy cries out.
Lord Hastings also checks in, from time to time, but he can’t seem to stand the waiting or the cries and keeps finding other things to busy himself with. The first thing he announces, on his way out of the room, is that he’s going to write a message to send to a Lady Blakeney, whomever she may be, and the last was to organize whatever hushed plans he and Lord Tony had made about the ‘Armand situation’.
Louis still doesn’t know anything about the ‘Armand situation’, but Lord Tony and Lord Hastings seem quite confident they can resolve it.
The door finally opens, and Lord Tony is on his feet before the physician is even fully through it. “How is he?” he asks in French.
“The bullet has been removed, my lord, and the wound debrided and packed. He is resting.”
“Will he live?” Lord Tony asks, and Louis holds his breath. He knows, in his heart, that a gunshot wound can kill even after help is received. But he hasn’t really let himself consider that it could happen to Sir Percy.
“The wound itself will not kill him, and his blood loss is manageable.The threat of putrefaction, of course, remains. I’ve left you well supplied with alum and nutmeg to stave it off and clean bandages to redress the wound. He is young and otherwise healthy. He stands a good chance.”
“Thank God,” Lord Tony says with a shallow bow. “We are in your debt, sir.”
The doctor shakes his head. “I have been well paid, my lord. And if your group is who I suspect, you saved the life of my niece and her husband some months back. I am forever in your debt.” He picks up his hat and gloves from the nearby table. “He should not be moved for several days, if it can be helped. If he worsens while you’re still here, send for me.”
“I am unsure how long we can safely remain, but we’ll see to it he is moved carefully if it becomes necessary and will seek out a suitable colleague of yours to assist once we reach England.”
England. Of course they’ll be heading to England. Louis isn’t sure how he feels about that. It seems to satisfy the doctor though, who nods and then takes his leave.
***
Louis approaches the bed. Sir Percy is now both clean and clean shaven, with no trace of a peasant’s manner or clothing left about him. He’s wearing a quality shift, though it’s loose enough Louis can see that his shoulder has been well bandaged. His sheets are pulled up to his chest and he’s fast asleep.
Louis hasn’t planned this, in his sneaking. He just wanted to see Sir Percy and he hasn’t thought much past that. He reaches out, gently, and lays a hand on Sir Percy’s good arm.
Sir Percy startles, eyes snapping open, and then he groans with the pain his tensing must cause him. Louis draws back his hand, regretting having caused the man such distress.
The movement catches Sir Percy’s eye and he turns his head, his lips curving up as his eyes meet Louis’s.
“Sink me. Where are my manners? I fear we were never properly introduced.” His voice is hoarse and he pauses to clear his throat, tongue darting out to wet his lips. And then, with what seems like effort, he smooths his facial expression and strengthens his voice to look and sound more like the stoic booming Louis associates with visiting English aristocrats back when times had been better. “Sir Percival Blakeney, Baronet. At your service, sir.” His lip quirks still farther, though his voice softens back to the more familiar tone he used in the forest. “Though I’d prefer if you never mentioned that to anyone.”
Louis doesn’t think to respond right away, but then it seems like Sir Percy is expecting something. Oh. A proper introduction, of course. “I am Louis Charles Cap--” he blushes at Sir Percy’s raised eyebrow and takes a deep breath, starting again. “I am Louis Charles, Dauphin of France.”
Or perhaps he is King Louis the XVII of France? He isn’t comfortable claiming Papa’s title though, not yet, even if he thinks perhaps it must be true. The thought turns his stomach, and really, what would he be king of right now, anyway?
Thankfully, Sir Percy seems to find Dauphin acceptable, and he bows his head as much as he’s able in his current position, holding out his hand until Louis takes it. “Your Royal Highness.”
“You may call me Louis, Sir Percy. Lord Tony has agreed to.”
“Has he? Then I suppose I must follow Lord Tony’s example where courtesy allows.” He relaxes back into his pillow, and his court-like mask relaxes with him. He squeezes Louis’s fingers and drops his hand back to the mattress, but doesn’t seem to mind when Louis keeps ahold of it. “I’m glad you are well, Louis. My men have taken good care of you?”
“Oh, yes,” Louis responds. “I’ve had several good meals, and a bath, and my bed has been most comfortable.” He frowns, suddenly unsure. “What will happen to me now?”
“Ah,” Sir Percy says, turning his head to look out the nearby window to the sea. “I’m afraid that depends a bit on me. If I’m well enough by this evening when the tide turns, we’ll all board my yacht and sail for England. You’ll find allies who will ensure that you are safe and well taken care of there.”
Louis nods, although the thought makes him nervous. A new country and a new court, one he has little familiarity with. Though at least he’ll have a few friends there, judging by the titles of all these men with them. “And if you’re not well enough?”
Sir Percy looks back at him, something Louis can’t figure out in his eyes. “If not, then we’ll arrange for the Baron de Batz to take you quietly across the northern border and into Austria, where you’ll find both friends and family eager to help you.”
Maman’s family are Austrian. It makes sense to go there. But Louis doesn’t want to have to trust someone new when he’s surrounded by those who’ve already proven reliable. He… he likes them. He hasn’t liked anyone in months, nor have any seemed to like him. “I can’t wait here with you until you’re better?”
“I’m afraid not. There are many people looking for you, and it’s far too dangerous to keep you in one place for long on French soil.”
Louis knows that must be true. But he also knows which option he prefers. “How will you know if you’re well enough to sail?”
Sir Percy smiles, faintly. “I don’t expect to be much consulted. I suspect Lord Tony, Lord Hastings, and Sir Andrew, when he arrives, will obey my wife’s decision on the matter.”
“Your wife?”
“Mmm. I’ve been informed that Lady Blakeney is on her way here from Paris, though no one has yet made it clear to me exactly what she is doing in France in the first place.”
Louis isn’t sure why he hadn’t considered that Sir Percy might be married. “Is she pretty, your wife?”
“She’s the most beautiful woman in France or England.” Sir Percy laughs, softly. “I may be a bit biased, but I think, once you see her, you’ll agree that my assessment can’t be too far off.”
“You love her,” Louis says, a bit surprised to see it made so obvious. Even French nobles rarely display love for their spouses in public, and he’s been taught the English are even less prone to do so.
“I do. For you see, Marguerite is as clever as she is beautiful, and that is a combination few men of worth can resist.”
That only makes sense. A clever man should have a clever wife, Louis thinks. It would surely be a dull marriage, otherwise. He wonders, for a moment, who his parents would have chosen for him to marry, should they have lived to arrange it. He hopes he’ll be clever enough to find a clever consort himself, once he’s old enough. He’ll need the help, he suspects, and that of anyone else who is clever that he can find.
“You must be looking forward to her arrival,” is what he decides to say.
“I am,” Sir Percy agrees. “Our last meeting shed light on some things that I think will make our way far more pleasant going forward.” His expression turns rueful. “Though I fear she will be quite vexed with me for getting shot.”
It’s only then that Louis remembers just how injured Sir Percy is. He may not have been wearing a courtier’s indifferent mask for most of their conversation, but he’s instead been masking his pain. Louis looks closer and is upset to realize how pale he’s become, worsening the longer they’ve talked. There’s also sweat beading at his browline despite the chill in the room. “I should let you rest!”
“That would perhaps be for the best,” Sir Percy agrees. “I’ll need all my wits and strength about me to convince Marguerite to let us sail this evening, what?” Sir Percy squeezes his hand, which Louis had also forgotten he still held. “Unless you’d prefer to go to Austria? You’ve family there. I’ll arrange for it to happen that way if you wish.”
“I’d rather go to England with you,” Louis declares. He frowns, though, confused. “It’s just that I thought you wouldn’t be consulted?”
Sir Percy smiles. “Another lesson for you, sir. There’s more than one way to have your wishes granted, even amongst the most clever of your friends. If you wish to come to England, so you shall. I’ll see to it.”
And again, despite the odds, Louis believes him.
Thoughts?