Every musket shot took Gaston back to Rossbach. A failed, disastrous fight against Frederick the Great. The patter of guns like rain falling on stone, the screams of men, the cries of cannons, the stink. The creep of red as white linen turns darker. Smoke before, behind, drums and clicking hooves. His fellows running, Prussian cavalry with swords held high cut down fleeing men and laughed. The sickening wet squelch of his bayonet sticking through a horse, and the dull crunch as its rider was thrown.
He saw, he felt, he tasted that battle in the smell of gunpowder smoke. In the flash and crack of the shot. And he could feel the bullet tearing through his shoulder, as his shot brought down the quail.
Gaston relived Rossbach with every day. Every time he fired a musket.
"Wow, great shot Gaston!" his friend Lefou said. "You must be the greatest shot in the whole world."
"It's true, beyond a doubt," he said with flair. He set one foot on a rock, and puffed his chest. With one hand now tightly squeezing his gun, the other a fist against his hip, he hoped Lefou would miss his trembling grip.
But Lefou was staring up at him, idolizing. While Gaston could not condemn his friend for his loyalty, it left him quite terrified. He feared the day his friend saw though the legend Lefou had dressed him in, to the quivering coward behind.
A figure stepped into view, down the street. A familiar sight, Belle was aptly named. Paintings of Helen of Troy, or patron mistresses of pagan pantheons were homely things compared to her. Her skin was pale as milk, untouched by hard labour below the sun. Her smile was charming, words disarming, and oh could she sing. But more than that, her studious and serious frown while she read reminded Gaston of someone. A nun, from Rossbach, who pulled a bullet free from his shoulder.
Gaston smiled. He waved his hand, gesturing Belle's way. "And I have my sights set on that one."
Lefou began to speak, and did something that frightened Gaston. His friend had doubts. "The inventor's daughter? Are you quite sure? She's so well read, and you're, ah, not quite Voltaire."
"I don't even know who that is," Gaston said.
"So, what sparked your interest in Belle?"
"It just occurred to me, Lefou, that she hasn't fawned on me. Not once, in all these years. Who else in this village can say as much? That makes her the best. And don't I deserve the best?"
"Why yes, of course, Gaston," Lefou agreed.
"She's the one. The lucky girl I'm going to marry," Gaston vowed, and he posed again, as if to dare the world to contradict him. He stepped forward, to boldly go and win his prize.
But fear took hold and squeezed him tight. It wasn't the horror — the terror — of Rossbach, a companion more constant than Lefou. It was an unfamiliar sensation; he was nervous. A surprise, to feel so timid. A feather weight of a fear, compared to the scars of Rossbach. Gaston marched through it, and on to his prize.
He rolled his broad shoulders, he flexed his incredibly thick neck, and admired the cast of his shadow. There was no one as burly and brawny and see he had biceps to spare. A whistle, admiring, came from the goat herder Lafey.
Now the hunt is just as much the chase, as the kill. Lafey is tempting, others call her enchanting. Gaston, though, could only find her disappointing. For nothing worth having came without effort, and pursuing Lafey had all the thrill of hunting goats in a pen.
"And there you go, with that particular look," Lafey was saying to Belle. "And your nose stuck in a book. Certainly not the best of us, you don't fit in with the rest of us, do you Belle?"
Lafey and Belle could get into a verbal spat for any cause. The two women despised each other, and put no work in hiding it. Always rhyming, Lafey would step a mile out of her path to take a jab at Belle. And being much better read, Belle would end each fight ahead.
Gaston nearly pitted Lafey, for what came next. "Do shut your mouth, you vagrant tart. Every time you speak, it smells like a fart. Perhaps you'll take it to heart, if I drive it home this time. You really, really cannot rhyme. Do the village a favour, become a mime."
Lafey spun round and screeched, her hands stretched like claws about to scratch. But she reconsidered, smoothed her skirt, and looked towards Gaston. "Ah, good sir," she said. "Perhaps you can invest a bit of effort and time. I have a secluded cabin, clothes that easily come off, and wine."
A desperate, starving man will take what opportunities appear. But a hunter has no need of easy meat. Gaston, to his surprise, had a moment of inspiration. He sniffed the air, dramatically. "Belle, I fear you might be right."
And oh did Belle laugh. Long and loud, nearly falling over as she bent at the waist and leaned on her knees.
Lafey's reply was silent, a glare so murderous it seemed to cloud the sky. She raised her hand and raised her hand. But her gaze fell on his arms, each as thick as her waspish waist. She grimaced, flinched, and eventually gave a haughty, "good day."
And like a good hero out of a fairytale, Gaston vanquished the evil witch. And strode forward to claim the fair maiden. But drawing close, her happy smile vanished, her arms crossed, and her scowl was near as hard as Lafey's.
Hard, but not the same. Where Lafey's had a blade's edge, Belle's was more like stone. Aloof, eyes cold, she looked so much like the nurse who fixed his wounds at Rossbach. A woman who had hated Gaston, even as she saved him.
"Why hello Belle," Gaston said. "Is that book about a Prince? Expecting love from a daydream might make you miss what's with you here." And so Gaston put hand on hip, and a foot on the nearby step. He struck a pose, which most of the village adored, but Belle only looked bored. She turned her gaze back into the pages, and started down the street.
"What is so engrossing in that book?" Gaston asked, and with a daring dart forward, snatched the story out of Belle's hands. He upended it, and examined the pages. "How do you even read this? There are no pictures."
He had meant it in admiration. The print was so small three-letter words could fit on the nail of his pinkie. But Belle made an angry stammer, a deep breath, and demanded, "monsieur, return my book, please."
"Belle, it's time you got your head out of the clouds, and started thinking about more important things," Gaston answered, though he offered the book back. "Like me."
Belle took the book from his hand, and pressed it close to her chest, cradling it as if he were about to snatch it away again.
"Belle, the whole town's talking about it. It's not right for a woman to read. Especially not so much romance. Soon she starts thinking for herself, getting her head full of ideas, and thinks it's the god-given right of every woman to marry a prince and live a life of idle luxury that less noble men have to spend their lives paying for," Gaston said, surprised by how he carried on.
At that, Belle stopped, and flipped though the pages, muttering to herself. She stopped, tapped her finger on a paragraph, and said, "one who becomes a prince through the favour of the people ought to keep them friendly, and this he can easily do seeing they only ask not to be oppressed by him."
"Now that is a surprising bit of sense, from a book," Gaston said.
"The Prince is not about falling in love with one. It's about how to behave if you become one." Belle said, as she held the book out.
"That makes my point, does it not?" Gaston asked. "Why is a peasant woman reading a book about ruling? We might as well teach fish to fly."
"That's actually a thing," Belle said.
"Or birds to swim."
"Oh come now, you're hardly trying. Ducks and gulls both swim, and gain from it," Belle said, smiling in spite of herself. She glanced away, up the hill, and frowned. "I really should be getting back to my father."
"That crazy old fool?" Lefou asked. "He needs all the help he can get."
A great bout of laughter burst from Gaston's lips, and he slapped his knees.
"Don't talk about my father that way!" Belle shouted, stomped her foot, and swung her book at Lefou.
Seeing any advantage he might have gained in this conversation slipping away, Gaston whirled on his friend and bopped him on the head. "Yeah, don't talk about her father that way."
"My father's not crazy. He's a genius," Belle insisted.
But fate, fickle and flighty, is well set on her love of irony. Just as Belle spoke, an explosion rocked Belle's house, blowing smoke and steam through the windows. Gaston's thoughts turned in that instant to starting a bucket brigade, but was forestalled when she heard exasperated swearing being shouted in the distance.
Belle turned and ran, but seeing that the smoke had stopped, Gaston elected to leave them be, for the moment.
"Well," Lefou said beside him. "That could have gone better."
Gaston felt the familiar twinge of fear, the echoes of Rossbach, still pulling at him to abandon his efforts. Defying it, in the only way he knew, he turned and pointed at his friend. "I'll have Belle for my wife. Make no mistake about that."