Chapter Text
The exposition took place during the hours before noon. It was not yet hot, but even so it was uncomfortably warm in the sun where Valjean stood bound to the scaffold. They had dragged him there and nailed a sign listing the full amount of his misdeeds to a pole. Then, Jean Valjean was stripped before the greedy eyes of the gathered strangers that had come to watch the proceedings in the marketplace.
Valjean was pale. His hands and legs were shackled, and so he could offer no resistance when rough hands stripped his modesty from him, exposing the scarred body of the convict to the blazing sunlight. Blood shot to his face when they dragged him up the scaffold, his sex dangling soft and vulnerable between his legs as the gathered crowd laughed and stared. Once he was tied to the pole, he could not escape their eyes anymore, and so he closed his own in despair, his shame so heavy that he could barely breathe beneath the weight. It seemed to suffocate him while the heat of mocking eyes burned those secret, vulnerable parts of his body that were now exposed to the sun and the crowd.
Three hours they let him wait like this. Three hours of torment, his flesh soft and small between his legs, trying to cringe away from the crowd's brazen stares. Once, following the jeering of a wealthy bourgeois in the first row, a guard poked him with the cudgel until Valjean shifted in his torment, the cudgel sliding up his thighs but stopping mercifully just in time.
Then the guard laughed, a rough, hoarse sound while Valjean gasped for breath, the muscles of his thighs trembling as he tried to escape the unwanted touch.
"A brute like that for your shop, Brunot? You'd have to geld him," the guard said and laughed again, the cudgel nudging Valjean's balls ungently until he groaned in pain and shame.
Another hour or two, Valjean thought as the murmur of the crowd gained in volume. Another hour or two, and even if he could survive that, then what? There was no more space in the bagne, and the state could fill its coffers with the auctions of recidivists like him. Valjean would be sold like an animal—like a bull to be slaughtered, or beaten, or used in any way his new owner liked.
A shudder ran through him. The guard's cudgel now idly lifted his soft cock as he continued to jest with the bourgeois who'd come for an early look at the wares on offer. All of Valjean's muscles tensed, but even so the chains did not give. Silently, Valjean began to pray that he would be sold to do work in a quarry for a few painful years before exhaustion would kill him.
Then a hand squeezed the muscles of his thigh, and his eyes flew open as he gasped in terror.
It was still the bourgeois who was eyeing him, head bent towards the guard who chuckled again. Valjean panted, his unseeing eyes scanning the crowd, pleading that some farmer might be in need of his labor instead—until his despairing gaze was halted by a familiar figure.
Eyes blazed with fury from the shadows beneath a hat. Ferocious whiskers framed a face that stared at him with barely contained outrage—and another emotion. Something in his gaze made Valjean tremble, even though now the bourgeois released him to move back into the crowd. Instead, he was pinned in place by the weight of that gaze as securely as a mouse is pinned by the cat's paw.
It was Javert. Javert had traveled all the way from Montreuil to his trial by the Court of Assizes of the Var—and now Javert would watch as he was branded and sold.
At that moment, this seemed to him an even greater humiliation than the guard's touches. Javert's gaze was burning straight into his soul as he stood before him, helpless and utterly exposed to those eyes which had always watched with suspicion before. And now Valjean no longer had the protection of his office, which had been the only thing that had held back Javert's derision in Montreuil.
The spectacle went on for another hour. Valjean continued to suffer in the heat, exposed on the scaffold to hungry eyes and curious touches alike, for now several men interested in making a purchase had come forward. Next to the guard, an official stood, one of the town's magistrates with a ledger in his hand, preparing for the auction.
“You can work him hard for a few years yet,” he pointed out when an old farmer came forward.
Valjean tried to swallow the shame that filled his stomach with bitterness when the man inspected his bare body, bony fingers squeezing his thighs and arms.
“A hard worker, eh?” he said and peered curiously at Valjean's chest. “But my wife won't let me buy one of them brutes from the bagne. Said she couldn't sleep with such a beast on the farm.”
“He's a dangerous man. Four escape attempts from Toulon; I would be afraid for your safety, monsieur,” a familiar voice said.
Valjean, who had squeezed his eyes shut in humiliation, now opened them again—only to meet the contemptuous eyes of Javert, who had joined the men in front of him.
“No; you can't put one of these onto a farm. He deserves the double chain,” Javert muttered.
Valjean was breathing shallowly, wishing desperately that he could escape the glare that burned through him, like a stab straight into his heart. But there was nowhere to hide for him. All of his body was on display for the crowd, and in Javert's eyes there was a gleam of satisfaction at seeing him finally reduced to this state once more.
“Yes, yes, but there's no more space in Toulon for the likes of him,” the magistrate pointed out, disinterested eyes sliding down Valjean's body. “In the end, surely it doesn't matter where he is chained. As long as public safety is maintained, of course.”
“Have him gelded,” the guard suggested, his cudgel once more prodding at Valjean's exposed genitals.
Pain and fear ran through Valjean with a jolt of pure terror. Instinct made all of his body arch, muscles bulging and tendons tense as steel ropes as he strained against the chains that held him—and then a large hand clenched around his balls.
Valjean froze, a tormented cry stuck in his throat at the violation of the touch. He panted, sweat dripping down his helpless body as the fingers clenched around his balls in warning until a tormented sound escaped him. His head fell back against the post in pained surrender.
Javert was staring into his eyes once more, and Valjean could not look away, even as he trembled at the touch.
“Yes. I wager that this is where much of the problem lies,” Javert said with terrible contentment. His fingers probed at his balls in their pouch until Valjean groaned with discomfort and fear, sweating in terror as the guard and the bourgeois leaned closer to watch.
“Look at him. Tried and sentenced and chained, and still he wants to fight. But this time, your brutish strength won't avail you,” Javert said, teeth bared as he finally released Valjean and took a step back. “This time, justice will finally be served.”
Valjean panted, pale despite the glare of the sun. How much more of this torment was there to bear?
Two further interested men came forward. Each insisted on prodding him like a horse they were about to buy, squeezing his muscles, inspecting his teeth—and all the while, Valjean felt Javert's glare on him, those burning eyes that seemed to take a horrible satisfaction in his fate.
“I don't think I can afford all that,” the old farmer said in resignation. “Not if I have to bid against Brunot. And then, to pay a doctor to cut him! And what if the wound festers and I lose my investment!”
Valjean trembled at his post. To spend what remained of his life working a farm would be a blessing—who knew what horrors would await at the hands of the bourgeois, or the rough-looking men who had taken such interest in his muscles?
“There is no need for that,” he said softly, breathing shallowly as cold sweat ran down his back. “I am... I am no danger to you in that regard. I swear it.”
The guard chuckled, but even so the farmer shook his head with a disappointed sigh and vanished back into the crowd.
Javert's eyes were still staring at him, suspicion and fury warring within them. Valjean felt crushed beneath their weight. Would he truly be sentenced to this greatest humiliation of them all, to have Javert witness his degradation?
With his chest heaving, his body slick with sweat as he suffered beneath the merciless glare of the sun, Valjean was exposed for another hour. There were more touches. Curious men emboldened by the tale of his infamy came forward, but without fail they retreated when they saw the other men who had voiced an interest.
At last, the guard stepped forward, using his cudgel to make space in front of Valjean. The magistrate climbed the scaffold to stand next to him, ledger in hand and an imperious expression on his face. Javert's eyes were still watching, cold and merciless, and they kept watching as the bidding began.
It was Brunot who made the first bid. The amount was low, and chuckles arose from the audience. Immediately, one of the two men in workman's clothes shouted a higher bid.
Valjean swallowed, raising his head to stare into the sun for a moment until the rays blinded him. Did it truly matter who would prevail? The two men made him uneasy. He had not caught their words, but there had been a furtiveness to their behavior that he recognized while they gave him knowing glances. He did not know what men like these might want with him. Would not the bourgeois be preferable to such disreputable men?
And yet, he could not forget the guard's threat. To be gelded like an animal—the threat still made him tremble. He, who had repented of his sins ever since the Bishop had raised him out of the darkness men like these had consigned him to! Had he not worked hard day and night to show himself worthy of the grace he had been given?
And now he would be treated like a dog once more; now he would not only know the shame of the chain and the red coat, but they'd turn him into something less than human, less than a man, and all because he had desired to spare an innocent this gruesome fate!
“Fifty francs,” the bourgeois said. One of the other bidders uttered a hoarse laugh.
“What do you want with him anyway,” the man said. “You've got no uses for a devil like that! A good citizen like you with a brute like that in the house?”
When Brunot didn't answer, the man laughed again. “Sixty francs,” he then announced. “My brother and me, we'll make good use of you. All that muscle will serve us well.”
Another shudder ran through Valjean. What torment would await him at their hands?
“One hundred,” Brunot announced.
“One hundred and ten,” the other men countered.
From the corner of his eye, Valjean could still see the glare of Javert's eyes. To think that this was the full amount which he had once earned during the nineteen years as a galley-slave; and now this should be the price of what remained of his life... He shuddered in helpless agony.
The magistrate smiled as the bidding began in earnest. Valjean remained silent and motionless, hands flexing every now and then against the chains that held him tied, although the steel did not give.
“One hundred and sixty,” Brunot declared, a satisfied smile spreading across his face when the two men gave him sullen glares but remained silent.
“No other bids?” the magistrate called out. “He's healthy and strong as a bull! You'll get many years of work out of him yet!”
The crowd remained silent. Slowly, Valjean dared to relax in his chains. To work in a bourgeois' shop would not be the worst fate. And perhaps he could still avoid the mutilation. He was a good and hard worker, and there was no danger from him; certainly the man would see that if Valjean had a chance to talk to him...
“Two hundred francs.”
A gasp ran through the crowd. Valjean felt light-headed. Twice the sum of what he had earned with the sweat of his toil in nineteen years in the bagne. A formidable sum for an old convict.
And a formidable sum for an Inspector. Even so, it was Javert who had called out that number, and it was Javert who still stared at him, dark eyes unreadable beneath his hat as everyone else fell silent.