The French Executioner

by C. C. Humphreys

  As the meeting broke up, he slipped from his concealment and made his way to where Haakon and Fenrir crouched in the scant shelter of a supply wagon.

  ‘We will volunteer then,’ said the Norseman. ‘Join the assault and so be there to protect Jean when that devil reaches him.’

  ‘How many times have you fought von Solingen?’ Januc was looking down, scratching Fenrir’s ears.

  ‘Uh, a few. There was the ambush, that back street in Toulon and, uh, Siena. Well, you know that, you were there.’

  ‘I was there. But that was a blur of a fight, and he would only have seen me for a moment. Besides’ – he ran his hand over his dark head – ‘my hair is back, my moustache too. I don’t think he’ll recognise me, under the right helmet. Whereas you …’

  Haakon thrust his chin out. ‘Do you think I’m going to let you go and rescue Jean by yourself? He needs me.’

  ‘He needs you alive. Think, man. That djinn will know you instantly and what help will you be to Jean with your head rolling on the ground?’ He put his hand on the other man’s huge forearm. ‘I will go in. Then Jean, the Fugger, Beck, if he’s in there, and I will all come out and come out fast. That’s when we will need you, you and your axe and our horses to get us away.’

  Haakon was silent for a while, scratching at his golden beard. One day in a siege camp and he’d already picked up lice!

  ‘Very well,’ he said finally. ‘We will wait for you, Fenrir and I. But if you are not out by dawn, we will come in and drag you out by your heels.’

  ‘I shall pad my breeches in anticipation,’ Januc called over his shoulder as he went back to their horses and baggage to prepare.

  A while later Haakon rejoined him. ‘I have been thinking,’ he said.

  ‘Allah protect us!’ laughed the janissary, but stopped when he saw his friend’s unsmiling face.

  ‘I know why I follow the Frenchman, Januc. I have sworn an oath to be loyal to him until our quest is fulfilled. But why are you still with us? Why do you risk your life in this cause?’

  It was a question that had already occurred to the Croatian.

  ‘Allah wills it. Without him I would not have escaped the galley. So I am bound to him somehow. For now.’

  ‘For now?’

  ‘Nothing is for ever, Norseman, as we both know. Causes are lost, loyalties change. It is the mercenary way. For now, my loyalty is to my comrades. I will not betray you.’

  ‘Good enough.’ The big man smiled briefly. ‘For now!’

  As he watched the huge back moving away from him, Januc let the question play within him for a while. The future, despite what these Protestants said, was not predestined, that Januc truly believed. It was a sheet of parchment awaiting the imprint of the scribe’s quill. What was written for now was that he would do his utmost to help Jean escape from the madness that was Munster. But, finally, he would also help himself. He had often heard the Fugger boast of his family’s wealth. It was obvious some of that wealth would be coming out of the city this night.

  ‘Allah guide me,’ he muttered. ‘Maybe there is a way to serve friendship and profit too.’

  SIX

  THE TAKING OF MUNSTER

  Jean Rombaud shivered in the corner of the empty wine cellar which served as the earthly gaol of King Jan’s heavenly kingdom. Makepeace had accompanied the guards that hurled Jean down the stairs, barking insults and commands, as befitted his position; but at the cell door he had managed to whisper of his return later before throwing Jean some rags to cover his nakedness. They did barely that, and little to stop the creeping chill – a match for the coldness gathered about the Frenchman’s heart.

  He sat in a position dictated by the bonds that had rapidly followed the rags, hands down by his ankles, head resting on his knees. Yet it wasn’t the constriction that caused him to groan aloud, nor the injuries he had sustained, for the men who had beaten him were apprentices to the Painmasters’ Guild, the hurt they inflicted superficial. It was the knowledge that Anne’s hand was again in the grasp of an enemy, once more the focus and subject of a madman’s fantasies.

  Far away, he heard a faint rumble which could only be the thunder the day had long threatened. Letting his head sink upon his knees, he gave into his despair in a way he had not since he first awoke in the gibbet cage. All the joy he’d experienced in the past months, the companionship of the Fugger – how the thought of him now twisted in his heart! – of Haakon and Januc, even the love he’d discovered in Beck, all this now appeared as a distraction from his true task.

  No one else should have been involved, he thought. I should have gone after Cibo alone. Letting people join me? Leading them? It was cowardice. Worse, it was a betrayal of the only thing I found to be true and alive in a lifetime of lies and death.

  Despairing, the only sounds the distant roll of the storm and the steady drip of water down the rough walls, Jean was unaware of time. A torch flared on the wall outside the cell, flickering light through the bars of the small window set in the door. But he had seen all he required. Death cells, he had long since discovered, needed little study. Each one was more or less the same.

  He was sure he had not slept overnight, but Makepeace said it was near midday when he returned.

  ‘You’ve stirred the ants’ nest, my friend, and no mistaking.’ Makepeace had dismissed the guards, loosened Jean’s bonds and laid out some mouldy hard biscuit and a flagon of brackish water. While Jean ate and drank Makepeace continued. ‘I’ve not seen ’em all so enthusiastic since the siege began. The ’ymns, the ’allelujahs, the ecstatic visions. ’is Madness-ty ’as got ’em all convinced it’s the sign of deliverance, ’er ’and is.’

  Jean kept on eating, giving no comment, so Makepeace hunkered down beside him, pulling some dried meat from his doublet pocket.

  ‘Last of me rat.’ He gnawed furiously. ‘Difficult to get at any price now. Which means if the rats ’ave gone, time is very nearly up for this place, despite all the ’osannas and such. Means I’m on me way out, tonight probably.’

  He chewed hard for a few moments, looking at Jean, spitting out pieces of gristle. Finally he said, ‘Look, you gotta tell me, Rombaud. I’ve known some strange souvenirs in our trade. There was that Flemish bloke – Wilkens, Jilkens, something like that. ’e liked to take an ear from each of ’is clients. ’ad a bagful of ’em and could remember every name that went with the ’ead they was formerly attached to. Said ’e was going to stick them on ’is wall when ’e retired. But ’er ’and? Anne Boleyn’s ’and? Only probably the best known appendage in the world! What was you thinking of?’

  Jean put down the biscuit he’d been trying to eat.

  ‘It is not something I can explain to you. But it is vital that I get the hand back. Will you help me to do that?’

  Makepeace whistled between his few teeth. ‘I’d like to, friend. Brotherhood of the sword, and all that. But I’m risking enough just talking to you ’ere. You know ’ow tyrants get. They think everyone’s plotting against ’em. I plan to lie low, and make my escape tonight. Look.’ He lifted his ragged shirt. Under it was a leather undershirt and sewn all round it were gold coins. ‘Most expensive armour I ever owned.’ He laughed. ‘Two ’undred and six gold thaler. Should buy me a nice little tavern back in Southwark.’ His laughter ceased. ‘So, sorry and all. But I’ve too much to lose. You understand?’

  Jean nodded. It was best that he was alone anyway.

  ‘You could tell me what he has planned. This King of yours.’

  ‘That I can do.’ The Englishman tucked in his shirt. ‘Some sort of ceremony to restore life to Anne’s bones, raise ’er up from the dead, complete with fiery sword to rain brimstone on ’er enemies and ’asten Armageddon.’ He smiled. ‘You see? I’ve been ’ere too long. I’ve picked up their way of talking.’

  ‘And when will this happen?’

  ‘Midnight, of course. Best time for conjurations, so ’is astrologers tell ’im.’

  ‘And me? Do I have a role in th
is pageant?’

  For the first time, Makepeace looked uneasy. ‘Yes, well.’ He scratched his chin. ‘’e’s very, uh, Old Testament in his beliefs, is our King Jan. ’e’ll see your execution as a kind of sacrifice. Doesn’t want me to do it, I thank God. Though maybe you won’t. ’E’s, uh, planning something else.’

  ‘But it will be part of the ceremony?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’ The uneasy look stayed on the Englishman’s face and he leant in closer. ‘Look, I could … I could say you attacked me, you’d got a weapon and … I ’ad to, uh …’ He pulled a dagger from his sheath. ‘Spare you the pain. Which there will be. You saw what ’e did to ’is wife.’

  Jean stretched his still-cramped limbs. Was it only three and a half months before that the Fugger had offered him the same swift despatch from a different prison, the gibbet cage? It was as tempting now as it had been then. And yet, had he taken that offer, his enemies would already have wreaked what harm they could with the hand of Anne Boleyn. His refusal then had led to this much delay, at the least. And it had given him a glimpse of another kind of love he’d forgotten could exist in this world.

  ‘Thank you, but no. I have breath and thus hope.’

  ‘Not much, I’m afraid.’

  ‘A little more with that dagger hanging at your side.’

  Makepeace glanced down and shook his head. ‘You wouldn’t keep it for a moment. Too big, see.’ The long blade caught a little of the dim torchlight. ‘But … I wonder?’ He reached his hand inside his doublet to the small of his back. ‘You might, just might, get away with this. If we was clever.’

  In the palm of his hand, reaching from the callused base of his fingers to the middle of his wrist, rested a slim shaft of dark metal.

  ‘Ever seen one of these? It’s called a pistole. From Pistoia, you know, near Florence? “City of assassins” they call it. Well named too. Everyone carries one of these.’ He flicked it up into the air, caught it. ‘You can throw it. It’s deadly sharp and so well forged, you can even bend it nearly in ’alf, then bend it back. It’s a little favourite of mine, ’elped me out a dozen times.’ His eyes glistened with a memory of slayings. ‘Still, can’t be sentimental about a weapon, eh? Tell you what, I’ll trade you it for your sword.’

  ‘My sword?’

  ‘Aye. I saved it in the madness up above. I’ve taken my last ’ead, me. This gold will buy me a new career – innkeeper. And I can’t think of a better memento to ’ave above my bar than the sword what took the ’ead of a queen.’

  Jean only needed a brief consideration. The Englishman was right: it was wrong to be sentimental about a weapon. And he was offering Jean a chance.

  ‘Agreed, then. Now, where could we …’

  The chest wound he’d received in Siena had part-opened in the struggle with Bockelson’s guards. It drew Makepeace’s attention and oozed when he squeezed it, causing Jean to groan.

  ‘It might just …’

  Whistling again, the Englishman used the little knife to slice off a few longer strips from his own cape. These he daubed in the blood, then, bending the pistole so it lay flush to Jean’s skull, he deftly tied the other strips around his head, tucking the fabric under Jean’s black and now reddened tufts.

  ‘Not bad,’ Makepeace said, standing back. ‘You look bloody enough to act ’urt. Keep clutching your ’ead, put more blood on when you can. Long as they don’t rub you there, you might get away with it.’

  ‘It’s a chance, anyway. And I thank you for it.’

  Gratitude made Makepeace uncomfortable and he mumbled his way to the door.

  ‘A last favour?’ Jean stopped the Englishman before he could call to the gaoler outside. ‘When you make it to the camp outside, can you find a friend of mine? Haakon is his name, a huge Norse axeman. He’ll probably have a wolf beside him. Tell him … tell him what has happened. And tell him that while I am alive I will not give up hope.’

  ‘Then long may you remain alive. And I ’ope to see you again, Jean Rombaud. If only to get my pistole back.’

  His feet tramped up the stone stairs. Jean settled once more into his position to wait, a time made more bearable by the fact that Makepeace had loosened his bonds and by the touch of a thin strip of steel, wrapped in cloth, against his skull. A strange thing, for it was uncomfortable yet it gave him the only comfort he had.

  The Fugger would call that a paradox, Jean thought. A word, an idea – yet another thing I would not have discovered if I’d taken the quick way out in the gibbet.

  The thought of the shuffling German with all his tricks and tics and strange sayings made Jean smile for the fraction of time before he remembered why he was lying there.

  ‘Why? Why?’ the Fugger cried, and then realised that he had cried it out loud, that he had once more failed to contain his misery. He knew this by the looks of the three scarecrow men his father had gathered from their various posts on the wall to work for their former master. He knew it by his father’s curse and his return from the far side of the room where he had been crouched over the trapdoor, listening.

  ‘Quiet, fool! Do you want to bring a patrol down on us?’

  Cornelius stood for a moment above his son, eyes afire, furious. The Fugger could see the big hands twitching, as if they longed to strike and had to be desperately restrained. Blows would have fallen were it not for the servants.

  Frustrated, the older man went back to his post and the Fugger to his thoughts of despair. To the punctuation of the cannon booming on the far side of the city, his mind whirled with images from the past months, of escapades and assaults, weapons clashing, monks chanting, naked bodies plunging in heat. Vision after vision, none staying, all bleeding into each other: an executioner with a wolf’s head, a slingshot hurling skulls, a crucified raven. Faces raced at him, only to grimace and gibber and race away. Two lingered longer than the rest: Jean, with his eyes that had seen too much, with no anger in them, with something much worse, the terrible hurt of trust betrayed. And beyond even this image, another kept returning: the hideous mask from the dungeon in Siena that was no mask at all, mouthing words.

  I will find you. Wherever you go, I will be there. In the end, you will beg me for your death.

  His father signalling silence, calling the servants over to take the rope’s end, barely interrupted the thoughts in his son’s head.

  He is coming for me, that I know, and the only man who could save me from him I have betrayed.

  His thoughts were as jumbled as anything he’d experienced lying in the stinking warmth of the gibbet midden. But they were worse here, because here the nightmare was incarnate in his father, tensing himself to pull on the rope that ran through the large iron ring on the floor. The trap led to the old passage that emerged in a dry riverbed beyond the walls. His grandfather had used it, years before, as a way of bringing in goods he did not want the city or his competitors to know of. But little Albrecht Fugger had never seen it as a way in, for he had never been entrusted with its portal beyond the walls. In his imagination, the passage only went one way – out, to freedom, to a world beyond beatings, a world where his failures weren’t manifest, his fate still his own to decide.

  Now he knew he had always been wrong, that the leaders of reform, Luther and the others, his father too, were right. All was predestined. There was no escaping one’s fate and the passage only led in.

  Thus it was no real surprise, when the trapdoor was pulled up, that the first head to appear had no face. It was a ruin, a pitted, near featureless landscape that flinched backwards at the torch thrust downwards by Cornelius, eager to greet his rescuers.

  ‘Put it out, fool,’ growled Heinrich von Solingen.

  It was no surprise, but the horror of the image in his head melding with the horror emerging from the trapdoor had the Fugger up on his feet in an instant.

  ‘No!’ he cried from a throat suddenly thickened by the ghost of a mailed fist clamped upon it. ‘You shall not have me!’

  The Fugger fled into th
e midnight city, running swiftly towards the sound of the guns.

  As the torch was lowered and Heinrich’s eyes refocused, all he saw, for an instant, was the back of a man bursting away from him through a door. Yet even in that instant he caught a whiff of things familiar. He could not dwell on it, because the fury it raised was diverted by the fool with the unguarded torch, who was again waving it upwards in a parody of welcome, babbling the while.

  Von Solingen grabbed the torch, dropped it on the floor and stamped it out. The room darkened suddenly, but the gated lantern he carried revealed all he needed to see. So he took the old idiot by the throat and squeezed until all noise, even breathing, stilled.

  ‘Silence,’ he said. Allowing the man to slip from his grasp and fall to the floor, he leant down into the underground passage and whispered, ‘Bring them all out. First men to secure the doorway. Quietly. Now’ – he turned back to a spluttering Cornelius Fugger – ‘which way to the gates?’

  They had waited for a seeming age in the complete darkness of the tunnel the Fugger girl had led them to, breathing in each other’s rank breath, sensing each other’s fear. Men yawned, but not from tiredness. All knew the risks of such a night-time assault, knew that many of their number would never see a day’s light again.

  At last, the shuffling forward began, and Januc, who had worked his way forward into the vanguard, right behind von Solingen’s own troops, concentrated on the only plan he had – to stick as close to the ugly German as he could and, if they found Jean alive, be ready to bury his blade right between Heinrich von Solingen’s huge shoulders.

  Januc saw them ahead as he emerged into the gloom of the warehouse. The companies were already assembling and crowding out the space.