Chapter Text
"How long have you known?”
It was coolly spoken, and there was no denial in Javert's face. For a moment, Madeleine knew a grief so great he could not speak. Five words, he thought, should not have so much power to destroy a man.
“That your account was a lie?" he said at last. "I suppose, since the night you told it.” He looked toward his bedroom. Had he only kept silent they could be there now, their bodies twisting against each other. He would be tearing at Javert's clothes, pushing him to his knees, thrusting forward--
A brief ugly laugh erupted from Javert. “That is good. I am glad you are not a fool. What gave me away?”
“A lot of things. An intelligent man should have come up with a better story." If only you had. I would have liked that better.
He said tiredly, "The stone shed. You said Vovet had planned to take me there. A place for torture, you claimed - with chains and whips and a ready bed. Arranged like that by Vovet, right on the prison grounds - while Joire walked around with the key in his pocket. That was the first thing I found hard to believe.
“Joire was a law-abiding man; you will remember I knew him for nineteen years. Yes, he looked the other way at times; turned a blind eye to corruption that happened well out of his sight -- but he kept order. He would not have tolerated any overt indecent conduct among the guards, or any threat to his authority. And so Vovet would never have done what you claimed - turned the old shed into a sadist's boudoir, knowing Joire would surely one day stumble upon it. It would have been an insane risk." He shook his head. "I could not fathom why you would lie about such a thing. Except, I suppose, to paint Vovet as blacker even than he was, and make your violence toward me excusable.”
“Excellent,” Javert snapped. “You are right, of course. It was a clumsy invention. What else?”
“You claim Vovet wanted me dead. But if that were true, he could have had his way at any time. Even after you beat me - what stopped him from taking me out of the infirmary or the sleeping quarters any night and ending me, the same as he did Montmartre? Yet in all the weeks and years that followed, he never did. He hated me from the day I came off the wagons, and was still beating me long after you had forgotten me. But he never came close to killing me. The only guard who ever did that was you.”
“Yes, of course. You are doing very well. What else?” There was a rigid lift to Javert’s chin, and his lips were curled in what might have been a sneer.
“You claimed you went to Vovet and won his confidence. How did you put it? You said, 'I was convincing.' But you were known at that time as a fair guard, surely the last man who would participate in a killing. Why would Vovet have trusted you so much that he involved you - not Rivier, not Bibet - in some plan to end me? You could not have become his confidante simply with a few words spoken in his ear.
“And then, in the end: you claimed you had to leave Toulon because Vovet turned everyone against you - because he suspected you were on my side. Again, that is a tale that makes no sense. You were merciless to me! Why would he turn on you? I cannot guess the real reason why you left Toulon - but I know it could not happened as you said.”
Valjean's rage was rising as he spoke, for the other man merely stared back steadily. “So,” he concluded, balling his hands into fists. “Pay your forfeit. Tell me the way it really was. It is late, and this is all I want from you.”
Through all this, Javert had sat rigid, his features hard and cold. Now he spoke in a hard, cold voice.
“All that you say is correct. The story I told was not the truth. I will leave Montreuil-sur-Mer tonight. By morning I will be far from here.” He gazed at the chessboard for a long moment, surveying the wreckage of the battle that had left his king cornered and defeated. Then he rose and bowed slightly, and turned to go.
Valjean blocked his path. He said with some menace. “That is not our wager. You promised to comply with my request. I demanded you tell the truth - the real truth - of what happened at Toulon.”
“I-- cannot."
But Valjean continued to stare him down, until Javert flushed a little. “You will tell me, Inspector.” Valjean slammed his hand down on the other man’s shoulder, and his grip was iron. He dug his fingers in, watching as Javert winced. “We have been together - and I've seen you weep, and you've seen the brute in me, and you've seen my scars. We've shown each other many secrets. What is one more?”
“I said I cannot!" Javert looked toward the door, then to Valjean - but Valjean did not move to let him pass. "I have admitted that I lied. Now let me go!”
“I will not,” Valjean growled. Javert hesitated, then tried to push past him. Valjean shoved him back hard. “Javert.” Valjean ground the name out between his teeth; his face was terrible. “Do you not understand? I know. I know already.”
“I promise you,” Javert said, “you do not.”
“I do. I only want to hear you confess it.”
For the first time, a shadow of fear crossed Javert’s face. “You do not know,” he repeated.
“I am telling you: I do! Will you make me say it? I have thought about what you said, that you had lost your soul at Toulon. And I thought about what I know of you; what kind of man you are. All these weeks, I have had my suspicions but I locked them out of my thoughts; I would not let myself dwell on them. I wanted our friendship. I wanted chess and conversation and to sit with you by the fire and forget the past, to believe we could go forward like this, perhaps forever. But tonight suddenly I cannot bear it any longer. To pretend, to go on, to go there--" and with a jerk of his chin he indicated the bedroom "-- now that I have figured out the truth.”
Javert had gone white. He gasped. "You don’t know. You can’t know.”
“I do -- because I saw it! At Toulon, the day you beat me. I saw!”
Happiness had skittered out of reach. What was left to him but rage and bitterness? He had traveled so far from Toulon, had carried so many burdens, had tried so hard to be a changed man. These past weeks, he had steeled himself against the undertow of memory, of longing, that threatened to suck him back into his long-gone aching for the man with honest eyes. He had tried to take care, but had gone out too deep and the current had been stronger than he'd guessed.
Heavily, wearily, he said, “We were marched out the morning and made to stand in the yard barefoot. Vovet stood by while I was pulled up to the flogging post and chained. Do you think I have forgotten a single detail? It was late winter and the ground was cold. The mud from the snowmelt pushed between my toes. I looked at the guards, trying to understand why they were doing this to me. I saw the triumphant look of Vovet. Leschelles and that Natellier were hanging back, laughing together. Some of the other guards looked uncertain, as if they did not know what was going to happen any more than I did. And then you stepped forward. The cudgel was already in your hand, and there was a look on your face I had never seen before, a smile of sorts. There were mudstains on your knees. So strange, I thought -- your uniform was always immaculate; why would it be soiled now when it was just reveille? As if you had been kneeling on the ground. I stared at those stains. And then you advanced on me. You swung, and the first blow landed, and the second, and the third… After that, you understand, I stopped thinking.
“But I know you better now than I did then, do I not? I know what makes a man like you take to his knees.”
A strangled cry came from Javert. He had begun to shake all over.
Valjean went on in a terrible soft voice. “I have come to know you well, you see. He was older than you -- just as I am. Tall, handsome. A well-liked man, a leader. An expert horseman. But above all, he was a man with authority. A man who loved power, loved to dominate. That is the quality you could not resist.” He closed his eyes briefly, as if the weight of his words bore down on him and overwhelmed his strength.
“And he, of course. Vovet. He liked young men.”
Shuddering violently, Javert crumpled to his knees and began retching.