God Help The Outcasts: COMPLETE

Chapter Ten: La Esmeralda

Nakoma couldn’t believe it. She simply couldn’t believe it. How could a man that claimed to know God be so cruel? She had to meet this Judge Frollo and get the other side of the story. There was no way that puppeteer was telling the whole truth.
She and Drizella were making their way toward a large, decorated platform as she thought about all this. They hadn’t chosen to go in this particular direction, but there was a rather large mass of people they had merged with that were pushing them along.
They filed in with the crowd and found themselves in the second row; they would have an excellent view of whatever was going to happen onstage. To the right of the platform a scary-looking carriage was brought in, accompanied by a group of soldiers on horseback. It was painted black, reminding Nakoma of Clopin’s depiction of Judge Frollo, and had several gothic spikes and ornamentations jutting from the top. It was a drab looking thing, especially compared with the variously colored tents in the area. Farther to the right, a procession of men and women were entering the courtyard, singing a festive song that belied their plain-looking clothes.
“Come one! Come all! Leave your looms and milking stools, coop the hens and pen the mules! Come one! Come all! Close the churches and the schools, it’s the day for breaking rules, come and join the feast…of…”
“Fools!” cried a brightly colored figure as he slid out from beneath the robe of the leader. Confetti filled the air around him, and he laughed jubilantly.
“Can this get any stranger?” Nakoma said as she nudged Drizella. The other woman, though, was completely focused on the singing figure.
“Isn’t that Clopin?” she asked. Nakoma shrugged, but as the figure came closer she recognized his crazy hair and beard.
“I guess it is.” She turned from Drizella, though, and chose to stare into the distance, becoming lost in her thoughts. She wondered how Mrs. Jenkins was doing back in England, and how Pocahontas was faring with her new love. Nakoma frowned and bit her lip to keep the tears at bay. How she missed Pocahontas! They had been as close as sisters back in Virginia. And Virginia…the tribe, her people, were thousands of miles away, across two seas. She suddenly felt alone in the crowd; there was no one here who really knew her. They knew nothing of her life or where she was from.
Had she been wrong to want this adventure? Maybe she should have just gone back to Virginia instead. She would be safe there, at home and comfortable among her people. But then what would she do? Maybe find a husband and get married, the way the other women did.
That’s not what Pocahontas would do, though, and the whole reason she had come to England in the first place was because she had envied Pocahontas’ bold and adventurous lifestyle. She hugged herself tight and steeled her will. She would finish out this adventure, and then, if she still wanted to, she would go home. Home at last.
Drizella tugged on her arm and pointed up to the platform, where Clopin launched himself up using the back of a cloaked man near the edge.
“See the finest girl in France make an entrance to entrance! Dance, La Esmeralda…” His voice rang into a crescendo as he swung his arm. “Dance!” With that he threw something onto the platform; it made him disappear in a cloud of pink smoke and a tall, beautiful girl in a red dress take his place!
The crowd around them went wild, but Nakoma was stunned into silence. She’d never seen anything like it, except for when the elders in her tribe conjured images from the smoke. But this was no image. This was a real, living girl dancing around on the stage! Her voluminous black hair swayed around her as she danced, and her turquoise eyes smoldered with mischief as she pulled a violet, star-studded scarf from her skirts. Quite suddenly she leapt from the platform and dashed across the tables stretching out like spider legs along the courtyard, ending up at the chair of a dark-robed figure.
“It’s the judge!” someone next to her hooted. “Esmeralda’s dancin’ for the judge!” Nakoma looked again and realized it was true! The girl knelt on the wood bench encircling the judge’s chair and wrapped the scarf around his neck, pulling him close. But just as she leaned in for the kiss, she slapped his hat down into his face and danced away, leaving the livid judge clutching her scarf. Now back on the platform, she rustled her skirts and twirled to the back, where she did a flip and landed with one leg stretched out in front and the other stretched out in the back. She then winked at the robed man that Clopin had used as a launch pad.
“How did she do that?” Drizella gasped. “Doesn’t it hurt?”
Nakoma snorted.
“Apparently not.” Esmeralda leapt up and snatched the spear from the hand of a nearby guard, ran to the center of the platform, stabbed it into the floor and swung herself around it, spinning down to the floor rather gracefully. With one hand and leg wrapped around the pole, she posed for the crowd and tossed her hair back with a bright smile. The cheers intensified, and suddenly Clopin was back on the stage, singing and dancing once more.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen, the piece de resistance! Here it is, the moment you’ve been waiting for! Here it is, you know exactly what’s in store! Now’s the time we laugh until our sides get sore! Now’s the time we crown the king of fools!” Here he stopped singing and addressed the crowd directly. “You all remember last year’s king?”
As if on cue, a large man being carried in a chair through the crowd belched rather loudly. Nakoma wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“So make a face that’s horrible and frightening! Make a face as gruesome as a gargoyle’s wing! For the face that’s ugliest will be the king of fools! Why?” Clopin stretched out, cupping his ear to hear the crowd’s response.
“Topsy turvy!” they shouted.
“Ugly folks, forget your shyness!”
“Topsy turvy!”
“You could soon be called ‘Your Highness!’”
“What kind of competition is this?” Drizella said, crossing her arms. Nakoma shrugged, watching as Esmeralda pulled the robed man onto the platform with the other contestants, who were all wearing animal masks.
“Seems like these people are pretty backwards to me,” Nakoma replied. As the contestants were booed a little goat knocked them off the stage and into a dirty heap on the ground.
“How rude!” Drizella cried. The contestants were all but gone, and suddenly Esmeralda threw off the hood of the robed man and tugged at his face like the others that had been wearing masks. But Esmeralda’s festive expression quickly morphed to one of shock when the mask wouldn’t come off.
“That’s no mask!” a man shouted from behind them in the quiet that followed.
“It’s his face!” cried someone else.
“He’s hideous!”
“It’s the bell ringer from Notre Dame!”
Nakoma saw the man’s face, deformed as it was, lose its smile as he looked around at the disgusted crowd. He began to breathe faster, and his large hands crossed and covered his face. Her heart suddenly burned with rage against these people; why should it matter if that was really his face? She had once been vain, in those days when she only had eyes for Kocoum, the tall, handsome warrior of the tribe. But after Pocahontas saved John Smith and he in turn saved her father, she had learned to never again judge someone by their appearance. And this creature was supposedly the victim of a terrible crime, if what the puppeteer had told them was true.
“The poor dear,” Drizella whispered, and Nakoma was truly glad then that she had met her. Here was a kindred spirit who shared at least one value with her.
“We should do something.” But before she could say another word, Clopin leapt forward in front of the devastated bell ringer and spread his arms to the audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen, don’t panic! We asked for the ugliest face in Paris, and here he is! Quasimodo, the hunchback of Notre Dame!” Clopin then placed a festive crown upon the confused Quasimodo’s head. The crowd burst into cheers at this, and Nakoma sighed in relief. At least they weren’t jeering at him any longer. The crowd suddenly rushed forward, and the two women were pushed out of the way as they gathered Quasimodo up in their arms and paraded him across the courtyard. Nakoma stole a glance toward the judge’s seat, remembering Clopin’s tale. The black-robed man looked on with a vague expression, somewhere between distaste and apathy. She wondered if he had really killed the bell ringer’s mother…but the thought was so troubling that she pushed it aside. If he had done those things, surely he would have been put in jail. Surely he wouldn’t have been allowed to continue in the house of God, having committed murder! The puppeteer had to have been mistaken.
By now Quasimodo had been placed in the seat of the old king and was being carried to a different stage, which she and Drizella carefully picked their way toward. Once upon the stage Clopin robed him in red and presented him to the crowd. Nakoma saw tears of joy leaking from his eyes, one normal and one half-closed due to a swelling above his eyebrow. She couldn’t help but smile with him, and as Clopin handed him a golden scepter and pushed him onto a circular rise on the stage the crowd cheered and chanted his name. Confetti was rained down on him; he smiled and waved at his subjects, and then threw his arms in the air and beamed.
“That was a nice thing they did for him,” Drizella said with a smile, waving up at him. “Look at him! Just look at him!” Nakoma did, and despite his apparent ugliness she saw the joy painted on his features. It’s beautiful, she thought to herself.
Then suddenly there was something red dripping from his face. The crowd became silent as death, and every eye was fixed on Quasimodo’s face.
“Now that’s ugly!” a guard said. Another laughed.
“Hail to the king!” he said mockingly, and then threw a tomato, hitting Quasimodo square in the face. Nakoma realized as the red dripping continued that someone had thrown a tomato the first time as well. To her horror, more tomatoes and other vegetables were thrown at him, and before she could figure out what was happening they had roped him around the neck and brought him crashing to his knees. Another rope was hurled and fastened around his left wrist. He struggled against the bonds, ripping his shirt in the process, and managed to yank his captors off of their feet. The townspeople weren’t so easily defeated, though. More ropes were produced and hurled, and though he tried to bat them away they found their mark. Two large men jumped up on the stage, finished off the knots and then began to spin the platform while others continued pelting him with produce.
And then, he spoke.
“Master! Master, please! Help me!” His voice was youthful and strong; he couldn’t be older than twenty! Nakoma whirled to see what the judge would do. The dark-robed man stared at Quasimodo with widened, angry eyes, but then turned away and folded his hands in resignation.
Nakoma’s heart began to race; she knew she had to do something.
“I’m going up there,” she told Drizella, and before she could say anything Nakoma dashed nimbly through the crowd, imagining a forest before her instead of people. She felt the townspeople jostling around her, and stumbled once or twice, but made it through and leapt up the stairs. The platform was still spinning, and she grabbed hold of one of the spokes and held tightly, digging her feet into the wood.
Everything suddenly went silent. The platform finally stopped turning, and now Nakoma found herself staring into the eyes of the bell ringer, wide and sad and frightened. She opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t find the words. Instead tears rolled down her cheeks, and she reached out to touch his face. He stared at her hand in fear, though, and she drew back. Then his eyes darted up above her; Nakoma turned and looked, too.
It was Esmeralda, only this time she was dressed in a gown of violet and white. She smiled down at Nakoma and touched her shoulder lightly. Then she knelt beside Quasimodo and spoke.
“Don’t be afraid.” She took the corner of a large violet shawl and brought it close to his face, but he pulled away from her the same way he had from Nakoma. “I’m sorry. This wasn’t supposed to happen.” Quasimodo simply looked at her, and then let her wipe the tomato juice from his face.
“You! Gypsy girls!” Nakoma and Esmeralda both turned toward the voice; Nakoma’s eyes narrowed when she realized it was the judge addressing them. “Get down at once!”
“Yes, your honour,” replied Esmeralda respectfully as she stood and wrung the juice from her shawl. “Just as soon as I free this poor creature.”
“I forbid it!” spat the judge. Esmeralda bent, yanked a blade from her skirts and sliced the ropes binding Quasimodo, all in one swift motion that elicited a gasp from the crowd. Nakoma crept closer to him and smiled comfortingly, offering her arm to help him stand.
“How dare you defy me!” Judge Frollo cried, pointing accusingly at them. Esmeralda ignored his threats, though, and continued.
“You mistreat this poor boy the same way you mistreat my people.” My people. So the gypsies were a nation, as were Nakoma’s people…she found the revelation comforting. Perhaps there was someone here who would understand her. “You speak of justice, yet you are cruel to those most in need of your help.”
“Silence!”
“Justice!” Esmeralda screamed, and helped Nakoma haul Quasimodo to his feet.
“Mark my words, gypsies,” snarled Frollo as he pointed accusingly toward them. “You will pay for this insolence.”
“Then it appears we’ve crowned the wrong fool,” Esmeralda declared. She bowed mockingly, took the crown from Quasimodo’s head, and tossed it. It landed with a jingle on the ground in front of Frollo. “The only fool I see is you.”


AlyCatAuthor