The French Executioner

by C. C. Humphreys

‘You are too late. It is buried. See?’ Jean held up his shovel.

  ‘Then you will dig it up again. Or you will watch your friend here die.’ At Cibo’s gesture Heinrich dismounted and pulled Beck after him, throwing her to the ground. ‘But wait! I don’t believe you have had time to bury it yet. Nor the strength.’ That cough again, the blood unchecked at the lips. ‘You, of course, will die very soon. But I can yet live. All I need is the witch’s hand. Search him, Heinrich. Find it. Then kill him.’

  ‘At last.’ As he crossed over to Jean, Heinrich von Solingen was almost smiling.

  Jean raised his sword, letting the scabbard slide off. Von Solingen simply took the weapon from Jean’s strengthless hand and thrust it into the midden heap where, swaying slightly, it cast the moonshadow of a moving crucifix onto the ground. He reached behind the Frenchman’s back and pulled the hand from its hiding place.

  ‘Now, may I kill him, my Lord?’

  ‘Yes, Heinrich. And I will kill Salome.’ Cibo had pulled his hunter’s crossbow from his saddle bags, was fitting a bolt into the notch. ‘Alas, I am disappointed not to be able to experience the end of her performance. But let her see her reward before she dies, at least. Cut his head off and bring it over here.’

  Heinrich von Solingen placed Anne’s hand on top of Jean’s sword, then awkwardly drew his own with his unbroken left hand. ‘I have been waiting for this moment.’ The two shattered faces were a hand’s breadth apart. ‘The last of your cat lives.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Jean wearily. ‘I’ll see you in hell,’

  A shadow passed between the moon and the rising sword, and a black shape settled on the gibbet’s crossbeam. They had all seen the bird, or one much like it, somewhere before, and when it opened its beak and squawked the word ‘Hand!’ two of them realised where.

  The word made the German pause, sword on high, and in that moment something erupted from the gibbet midden, bursting from the very depths of the muck, soiled scraps and bones picked clean. Only the gleam of two eyes split the blackness; that and the moonlight flashing on the stiletto blade that flew straight up, like an arrow shot from hell. Its flash was the last thing Heinrich von Solingen saw before the dagger entered his left eye and his head exploded in white light. The midden creature rose as the German fell, accompanying him all the way to the ground.

  ‘Fugger!’ yelled Jean, and the mud animal leapt backwards from the body, knife still clutched in hand.

  ‘Ogres pursue me! Devils bite my legs!’

  The cry of shock from the Archbishop drew the Fugger’s gaze to the horses. All he saw was a mounted demon, blood streaming from his ghastly maw. The blood of his last victims, the Fugger thought, with me destined to be the next meal.

  ‘You shall not have me!’ he cried, raising the dagger.

  A bolt flew, passing through the Fugger’s palm and on into the wood of the gibbet beam, pinning his one hand there.

  ‘Oh, Daemon, oh my dear!’ the Fugger cried as he sank down to his knees, his hand stretched out above him, a crucifixion half complete.

  On his horse, Cibo tried once more to slot the string into the trigger notch of his crossbow. But as soon as he took his hands from the reins, his high-spirited horse began to circle around and his weakened fingers kept slipping on a string made slick by his own blood.

  ‘Come on,’ he muttered. ‘One last bolt for the executioner.’

  Jean saw his death in the string creeping slowly to its notch. Then, looking down, he saw something else. For the moon had finally cleared the last great bank of cloud and its beams shone on the sword thrust into the earth, and on the hand that lay atop it. These, he realised, were the three central elements of the journey to this crossroads: the hand of the Queen, the sword that had taken that hand, and a full moon’s light. The alignment came together in his mind, then in his vision again, for he saw the hand shift on the pommel, grip it. Beyond the hand, an arm led up to bare shoulders, and above them, fixed upon him now, were the question and the answer in the eyes of Anne Boleyn.

  She was dressed in a simple shift of silk, and her brow was encircled with a wreath of meadow flowers.

  ‘You see?’ Her voice was soft. ‘I promised we would meet again.’

  Jean reached out and took her hand, felt that strange and wondrous pressure, and it filled his limbs with a surge of power.

  ‘Listen to me, Jean. Use all your strength now and you will not need to use it ever again in my cause. I will help you. Lift your sword.’

  It would not shift at first, despite the eleven fingers pulling on it, then it came from the earth in a rush. Ten more fingers interlaced over its leather grip, just as he heard the click of a string snagging a notch, the sound of a bolt dropping into a groove. Just as he realised what they must do.

  ‘Now, my Queen?’

  ‘Now, Jean Rombaud.’

  ‘Give me the hand!’ Cibo cried, levelling the crossbow at the man now standing there with his square-tipped sword raised before him and the object of all Cibo’s hopes clutched against the grip.

  ‘Gladly,’ said Jean and Anne together, as he bunched his once powerful muscles in that familiar curl and then released them. The sword flew along a moonbeam towards the man on the horse; a crossbow bolt met but didn’t deflect it on its flight. The heavy blade took Cibo in the neck, just where the weapon was most keen, in that little space on the front edge no more than the breadth of two hands. The sword made no pause there but passed on through to land, tip first, in the soft earth beyond, just before the Archbishop’s head reached the ground. The head rolled over twice before ending face up towards the sky, the eyes wide as if looking for shooting stars.

  A moment later, a hand fell upon it, a small sixth finger settling near the parted lips. Blood no longer flowed through them. But for Giancarlo Cibo, Archbishop of Siena, the healing touch was, of course, too late.

  EPILOGUE

  TUSCANY, AUTUMN 1546

  It was late when he set out on his quest, driven by the promise he had made her. As he walked down the avenues of vines still bulging with fruit, the setting sun fired the forest ahead of him, the ochres, umbers and brilliant siennas of the trees burnished to a flaming gold. Above, all alone in the impossibly azure sky, one small fist of a cloud was beginning to bruise from purple to grey.

  He limped into the forest under the canopy of a copper beech, metallic leaves like spear points thrusting down on him. Here he paused, swishing his stick through the heads of the tall grass, considering the nature of what she had asked him to do, his twin tasks. He knew that he had been observed in his walk through the vineyards, that they would not have retreated far into the trees before setting up their ambush. Probably just ahead, where the little trail widened out through a grove of chestnut. There would be plenty of ammunition and steep slopes to give the advantage of height. It was where he would have chosen, were he the ambusher.

  There was nothing for it but to move steadily forward. The light filtered sideways through the trees, dappling the undergrowth, but there were still many leaves on them. The summer had been endless, no great wind sweeping in from the Maremma to shake the foliage down. This was the first day he had felt even a hint of something cooler in the light breeze, though his old wounds had sensed the season’s change first, as they always did.

  There was the snap of a stick, the slightest of rustles to either side and even … was that the hint of a whisper swiftly cut off? He advanced boldly for he had his mission, and the only way to accomplish it was to draw them out.

  The first projectile that struck him was from above and he thought Gianni, because the boy loved to climb, was never out of a tree. The second was harder and more accurate, the chestnut catching him just below the ear, and with some sting to it. That would be Anne, because she had her mother’s arm, her unerring thirst for the target. After that it was impossible to guess at the thrower, so heavily did the missiles come, in single bullets, in concentrations like cannon shot. He staggered under the storm, as was required of him, and fi
nally fell forward onto the forest’s mossy floor.

  When they rolled him over, he saw they were all there, four faces staring solemnly down at their victim as if wondering what to do with him next. He knew Erik would favour more bloodletting, while Maria-Carmine would be keen to practise some sort of forest medicine. You could never tell which way Gianni would lean, his mind would already be on to something else. How to climb even higher, probably.

  But it was Anne who decided, of course. Though a girl, she was still the eldest and the strongest, and she had a ruthless quality to her. Another trait from her mother, he thought, rubbing under his ear.

  ‘You are our prisoner. We will take you back to our castle, and there the Queen will decide your fate,’ she declared.

  ‘As long as the castle lies homeward, I will surrender my sword to your power, my Lady.’

  Jean smiled at his daughter, and reached up with his stick. She grabbed the end of it and tugged, helping him to his feet, where he spent a moment rubbing his knee.

  ‘And the Queen has a request of us. Gather your weapons, for she is going to make us a chestnut pie this night.’

  This produced a cheer, for Beck’s pies were famous. When they had a sufficient quantity of the tufted brown nuts, they headed back through the wood and along the vine-lined avenues. The heads, fair and dark, kept popping up amid the thick clusters of fruit. Only Maria-Carmine walked with him, her little hand thrust in his. She was a quiet child, very like her ever-thoughtful father.

  ‘Well,’ said Beck, studying the bounty of the forest spread out on her table. ‘A good crop indeed.’

  The moon was full that night, the sky clear and their way well lit across the valley to the Comet. They had a delay at the next house, for Maria-Theresa did not know where her husband was.

  ‘Always fiddling with something. He may be in the barn, Jean, you could look for him there,’ she said.

  While the women compared their offerings for the feast and the children resumed the game of the day, Jean went around to the barn. The door was open and a swath of moonlight spread across the floor to the olive press.

  ‘Albrecht? Are you there?’ Jean called.

  There was a shifting from under the huge metal and wooden frame, and a creature’s head wormed its way out. Even in the moonlight, Jean could see the creature was covered in oil.

  ‘Oh Fugger!’ He leant on his stick and laughed. ‘Haven’t you had enough of lying in the dirt?’

  The Fugger pulled himself out from under the press and began a futile effort at wiping himself down.

  ‘It’s blocked. Again,’ he explained, rubbing his sticky hand on his smock.

  ‘My friend, Maria-Theresa is going to kill you.’

  They left husband and wife there, little Maria-Carmine trying to scrape the oil from her father’s clothes and skin, the hapless German standing unprotesting between his scolding wife and child. As they walked down through the Fugger’s olive groves, their footfalls were accompanied by the rhythmic fall of an axe. It came from within the walls of the inn ahead, and when they got closer they could see, through the gate, the gleam of a curved blade as it rose and fell.

  It was the little Norseman who wielded the weapon. The larger one sat to the side shouting encouragement while he played with the ears of a big hunting dog that looked as if it might have some wolf in it.

  ‘Is it that time already?’ Haakon stretched and rubbed the hound’s belly as it rolled in the earth before him. ‘Have you seen this lazy whelp? All it likes to do is loll about. His father will be snarling in Valhalla while his fool of a son is having his stomach rubbed.’

  ‘And you the fool doing the rubbing,’ observed Beck.

  ‘Aye.’ Haakon rose, stretched, then went over to take the axe away from his boy. ‘Good work, Erik. Anne, Gianni, why don’t you take as much of the wood as you can to Mathias in the courtyard?’

  It became a game, of course, and much wood was raised and dropped before the children staggered out under their burdens.

  ‘You can never have too much wood.’ Haakon was staring after the children, his mind elsewhere. ‘I have something to show you,’ he said suddenly and moved towards the house, calling out, ‘Michaela, we have visitors.’

  Haakon’s wife stood in the doorway, rubbing floured hands on a cloth. She was a woman whose eyes always danced with a smile in them, and Haakon always smiled when he saw her.

  ‘Is it ready?’ he asked.

  She leant into him, her head resting on his shoulder, and looked mock seriously at Jean and Beck. ‘He thinks I have nothing better to do than oil his carvings.’ She laughed at the slight hurt in his eyes. ‘Yes, man. It is ready.’

  Haakon entered the kitchen and re-emerged a moment later holding a long, curved object wrapped in a cloth. He shook the material off it, and a wooden scimitar, perfect in every detail, lay in his hands.

  Jean ran his fingers lightly over it. ‘It is beautiful, my friend. Erik will love it. And Januc would have loved it as well.’

  ‘Aye. Tonight, of all nights, I wanted to remember him with something.’

  They gathered in the courtyard and, with Mathias’s table groaning under the weight of gifts from all their friends, the memorial feast was greater than any of them could remember.

  Lying back later, the fire consuming Erik’s carefully chopped wood, the umber stones reflecting back its glow, the young wine from Jean’s vineyards as refreshing and uplifting as the best of any year past, it was time again for the tales. Some of the details were left out, because of the young age of the audience and the tendency of children to take their fears to bed with them. But most of the story was there, and its accounts of beautiful queens, devilish enemies, impossible odds, improbable rescues and battles by sea and land beguiled the evening away.

  Each child had his or her favourite section of the story, and each knew that part of it by heart and was annoyed when there was any deviation from their version. Erik sat with the wooden scimitar on his knees, straining forward whenever his hero Januc was mentioned. He especially loved the tale of the fight at the bridge, how the janissary had pulled Haakon from the flood and left him with a farmer’s family before riding to his glorious end in the village. Maria-Carmine sat on her father’s lap, clutching at his one hand as her mother had once clutched at it, tears flowing as she heard of his sorrows, replaced by tears of joy at his redemption. Gianni simply wanted more blood in all the stories.

  And Anne? She was fascinated most by the beauty of her namesake, the tragedy and triumph of her life. Jean had discovered a way with words to describe Anne Boleyn that seemed to please the child. For he remembered how once he had lulled his other child to sleep, in the only other time in his life when he had been happy, and how she had always liked it when he was simple and true in the telling.

  Copyright

  AN ORION EBOOK

  First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Orion Books.

  First published in ebook in 2011 by Orion Books.

  Copyright © 2002 C. C. Humphreys

  The moral right of C. C. Humphreys to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978 1 4091 3854 9

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