by Tim Willocks
‘Grymonde is a fanatic?’
‘Only in his own cause, which is destruction, though he doesn’t know that either.’
‘So Carla is in Grymonde’s hands. Where?’
‘Up in the Yards, on the hill near Porte Saint-Denis. He calls it Cockaigne. You’ll not find it alone, Theseus himself couldn’t. Neither could I. And for Carla, time runs short.’
Tannhauser pulled out the dagger. Paul whimpered. He was on the edge of complete submission, yet still clung to his fantasy that this was a game.
‘The minstrel was the most harmless man in the room,’ said Tannhauser. ‘When I killed him, every other man knew he was going to die too. And here is a strange fact. Most men, once their doom is revealed, find it easier to die than to fight. The fighters were flushed, but even they were resigned to the outcome. All of them, except you. Not because you are a fighter, but because you believe that the world needs you. But the world needs no one. It doesn’t need Carla. It doesn’t need me. Here.’
He stabbed Paul in his fat a second time. Paul howled.
‘That’s for sending your scum to murder my wife.’
He stabbed him again.
‘That’s for sending your scum to murder me.’
Tannhauser stropped the blade on the sole of his boot.
He let Paul see the street shit coating its edges.
‘That should be sufficient of Paris to poison you slowly.’
He stabbed Paul a fourth time. Paul sobbed and wobbled.
‘Now your doom is revealed.’
‘You’re a bloody lunatic.’
Tannhauser stabbed him again and left the knife in to soak. Paul twisted and whimpered, his eyes bulging from the bright crimson mask that coated his face.
‘How do I find my wife?’
‘Joco knows, in the Truanderie. He knows Cockaigne.’
Grégoire had seen Petit Christian visit a house in the Truanderie.
‘Joco or Typhaine, a redhead,’ said Paul. ‘Her daughter knows it, too.’
‘I know the house. Which floor?’
‘They’re on the second floor.’
‘And if they’re not there?’
‘Joco’s laid up in bed. Grymonde broke his ribs. He’ll be there.’
Tannhauser stared at him. The Pope clenched his eyes shut. He was still trying for some final, secret victory. Petit Christian. Christian knew about the Truanderie. Grégoire had followed him there. La Fosse had said that they didn’t know where to find Carla; but that had been some time around noon. Now they did know.
‘How long has Christian known where to find Carla?’
Paul stared at him with the fury of utter humiliation.
‘I was waiting for you to walk through that door, man. I was waiting to tell you everything. I wouldn’t have charged you a single copper penny.’
‘I know that. Do you want me to start on your thumbs?’
‘Christian left here over an hour ago.’
Tears swam into Paul’s eyes and rolled through the gore on his cheeks.
He sobbed. ‘In the place where there are no men, be a man.’
Tannhauser said, ‘Hillel.’
From Hillel to Sabato Svi.
To Tannhauser.
To Carla.
To Grymonde.
‘Grymonde quoted the rabbi. Didn’t he?’
Paul’s tears stopped. He looked at him.
‘He said that was why he wanted to find you. That’s why I told him how to.’
‘Are you a Jew?’
‘Do you think they’d let a Jew sit where I sit? I once knew a Jew. He taught me some things worth knowing, the best of which I chose to forget.’
‘Then we share something in common.’
Tannhauser pulled the dagger from Paul’s fat. He wiped and sheathed it.
‘We share something more,’ said Paul. ‘We love not Marcel Le Tellier.’
Even as he sat putrefying, Pope Paul was making moves that would outlive him. Tannhauser grinned, in admiration. He sat down.
‘How do you know Le Tellier?’ asked Paul.
‘Never set eyes on the man. Today was the first I ever heard of him.’
‘Marcel wants to get his hands on Carla, badly. I don’t know why.’ Paul nodded at the slaughter that engulfed his tavern from front door to back. ‘Though, as you appear to appreciate, to wipe a dirty slate clean is always prudent. To that end, he is spending a good a deal of money and taking a good deal of risk, but he can’t use the resources of the Châtelet, not directly. He couldn’t conceal that from those who would step into his shoes, and they would use the fact to bring him down. Catherine de Medici will turn this war to her son’s advantage, even if she didn’t want it. But she will not tolerate a chief of police who uses the Châtelet to aid her enemies. No man is more enslaved to the state than a policeman. Her dwarves would be using Marcel’s head as a footstool within a week.’
Tannhauser said, ‘The Pilgrims.’
‘Garnier, Crucé, Brunel, Sarrett – perhaps other confraternities, too.’
‘The Pilgrims would murder Carla for Le Tellier?’
‘Not a murder, a mission of mercy. To rescue the Catholic damsel from a notorious fiend. The Cockaigne Infant. After today they’ll be feeling like the Life Guards. The captains will leap at the chance. And then she’ll be in Le Tellier’s hands. He has a son –’
‘Dominic.’
‘He will have sly resources, too, guards for hire. In sum, more than enough to take her, dead or alive. Grymonde doesn’t merely not expect it. He doesn’t believe it. He’s the King of Cockaigne. The mighty Infant. He’s mad. But, in truth, it’s just another beggars’ den, a patch of weeds that no one cares to rip up.’
‘Will Marcel lead the expedition in person?’
‘Marcel is no warrior. And he won’t steal the Pilgrims’ glory. The glory will be their only reward, and they’re pious enough to think it a rich one.’
‘Your bravos were told to take me alive.’
‘There was a generous bonus in it,’ said Paul. ‘Le Tellier must have some other use for you.’
‘Unless he seeks his own executioner, I can think of none.’
‘In his shoes I could think of plenty,’ said Paul. ‘For instance: I’d leave you chained in a dark hole for a day, dispose of Carla, then rescue you. I’d prove to you, and whomsoever else, that some other party was responsible for this conspiracy – child’s play, by the way – and let you, and the Religion and the law, in whatever combination, take their course. The other – guilty – party being one of Marcel’s enemies, of course. Two birds with one stone. It would be a fine piece of treachery, but Paris has seen better. Believe me, no one will ever know who had Admiral Coligny shot. I doubt the man who pulled the trigger knows.’
‘Le Tellier has proved all he needs to, to me.’
‘I speak of the possibilities in his mind, which yet can know little of what is in yours.’ Paul spread his hands. ‘Alternatively, he could have your throat cut in the same dark hole – if only you were in it, which I suspect is still his fond hope.’
‘Assassinating a Knight of Malta without their consent is a risky move.’
‘Not if the knight in question murdered his wife and half a dozen innocents. He’d paint you up a regular Gilles de Rais. It worked on Gilles, didn’t it? And from what I know of you, it would be no challenge to make the deception convincing.’
‘What’s the case now – as far as Marcel knows it?’
‘You’re either dead or tied up in my backyard,’ said Paul. ‘Or you never went back to the chapel, and you’re drunk in a brothel, waiting for some sergent to find you.’
‘Why would I be drunk in a brothel?’
For the first time, Paul appeared to find him stupid.
‘Because you’d allowed your wife to be murdered by beasts.’
Tannhauser allowed him his morsel of spite.
‘That was beneath me. I apologise,’ said Paul. ‘You’ll find a purse on Maurice wi
th the bonus, if you want it. Thirty écus d’or.’
‘The King’s head is always welcome.’
Paul leaned forward, despite his wounds, as if scenting something tasty.
‘There’s plenty more. More than you’d think. But it’s not here.’
‘Then it’s no use to either of us.’
‘You do know such as we could make a fortune together.’
‘Yesterday, perhaps. Today the only ledger I’m keeping is writ in blood.’
Paul glanced at the crossbow on the table. He looked Tannhauser in the eye. Tannhauser saw the nerve he had needed to make himself the Pope of Les Halles.
‘Grymonde is no great thinker,’ said Paul, ‘though he is a philosopher of sorts. He is cursed, as you will see. You won’t mistake him. And he has a shrewd gut, when he has the sense to hear it. He said, “someone is squatting on a dunghill of hate”.’
‘War will turn the dunghill into a mountain.’
‘He wasn’t talking about Huguenots or fanatics. He meant something personal. Something to do with Carla. If not her, someone close to her.’
‘What does your fat gut say?’
‘It agrees with Grymonde’s.’
‘Do you know Orlandu?’
‘No.’ Paul grasped at this last straw. ‘But I can find him for you.’
‘I know where to find him.’
Tannhauser stood up.
‘Don’t you want to know more about Marcel Le Tellier?’
‘Unless you can get me close enough to kill him, I don’t need to know more.’
There was no sense wasting a bolt. Tannhauser chose the spontone.
Paul started shivering. ‘If I’ve a last request, Chevalier, it’s that you believe this –’ His voice trembled. ‘I swear that when Grymonde left, it was to try to save your life.’
‘There’s only one who can save his, and it’s not you. Why do you care?’
‘Let’s say I like to think of Grymonde as a wayward son.’
Tannhauser looked at him. Paul dropped his eyes.
‘A pope who sired a king. You could have done worse.’
‘I hope your gambito pays off, you black-souled bastard.’
Tannhauser levelled the spontone. Paul raised one finger.
‘Have you any idea how much money there is in shit?’
Tannhauser stabbed Pope Paul through the heart.
He collected the purse. He took the crossbow. He turned.
His way to the door was awash with the gore of the slain. Those few flagstones left unpainted were grouted with the run-off. The dead in their stillness rendered a silence that had nothing to do with sound. The headless harpist hadn’t moved from his chair.
Tannhauser felt no scruple and wondered at himself.
He concluded that it was just as well.
The dirty slate was far from clean.
Carla needed him.
He needed her.
He walked the length of the bar and threw the bolt.
He shouldered his way out into the street.
He left the Blind Piper behind him.
Or tried to.
It was almost full dark. He couldn’t see Grégoire. A nearby butt collected rainwater funnelled from the roof. He laid up his weapons and peeled off his shirt, which was plastered to his skin with blood and sweat. He plunged his head in the water up to his shoulders. It was cooler than he expected and welcome. He drank. He rinsed the shirt and swabbed himself down. It felt good. The boy ran across the street with his dog.
‘You were gone a long time.’
Grégoire stared at the janissary symbols inscribed on Tannhauser’s arms.
‘I told you, I’m not to going die in Paris.’
‘What happened to the minstrel?’
Tannhauser wrung out the shirt. He didn’t answer.
‘The music stopped. I heard the noises. Then I saw that.’
Grégoire pointed. Blood flowed under the door and down the step.
‘Then all the noises stopped.’
‘I couldn’t talk to Paul with a dozen knives at my back.’
‘Did the minstrel have a knife?’
‘The minstrel didn’t suffer. He died singing.’
Grégoire threw his arms around Tannhauser’s waist and sobbed. He was a child. Worn out with fear and toil. The one man he looked up to had murdered a minstrel.
Tannhauser slung the shirt over one shoulder and put his hands on Grégoire’s back. He felt the ungainly body shudder against him. If God at the moment of Creation had held the essence of goodness in His palms, and in the spirit of curiosity stacked the pain of confusion on top of it, Grégoire was what He might have made.
Feelings that Tannhauser did not need to feel rose inside him. He was one of the men who had made this world into the world that it was. He searched through the shame for something worth saying. For something he had the right to say; something that was true, and not some evasion. He could tell Grégoire he was not a good man; that he was not a wise man; that in pursuit of his woman’s safety he was content to employ any evil, at any cost to his spirit. He could tell him many such facts. But the boy wouldn’t understand. He would not find in such truths any grain of the comfort he needed and deserved. He should never have taken the boy from his stable. He remembered sitting with the printer’s daughters, in that same stable. It was worth a try.
‘Grégoire. I love you.’
The boy looked up at him, his gums covered with snot, as if he’d never heard the words before, which, on reflection, Tannhauser thought was likely enough.
‘You have saved my life. You may yet save my soul. Should I lose them both, I will love you from the fires of Hell. Now, wash your face.’
Grégoire scrubbed his face with water.
Tannhauser took a piss against the wall. He tied the shirt around his waist by the sleeves. The shirt had served him well, but it marked him a wanted man.
Grégoire relieved himself, too. Tannhauser laughed.
‘A wash and a piss and a man feels ready for anything.’
Grégoire grinned and nodded.
Tannhauser needed Grégoire to take him to the house in the Truanderie. Joco. Red-haired Typhaine. After that, he could place him in some hostel, and, despite the boy’s protestations, he could bully him into obedience. That was the right thing to do. Yet Tannhauser could not find it in himself to expel the boy from this dark quest upon which Destiny had called them.
‘Grégoire, I have more bloody work to do. I will do it.’
Grégoire nodded.
‘Dire hazards lie ahead. I will set you somewhere safe if you want me to, but if you’ll join me, I’d be grateful for your help. Without you, I don’t much fancy my chances.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Take me to the house you saw in the Rue de la Truanderie.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Crimson Apron
CARLA AWOKE TO find Amparo looking into her eyes. Their noses were almost touching. Carla wondered what the babe saw. She seemed to be bathing in her mother’s breath. Carla didn’t move. She was spellbound by her radiance. She felt the embrace of eternity. The world was one and it was forever. Amparo uttered her sweet, piping cry. A greeting, a question, a song of life. Carla smiled.
‘She’s ready for another feed,’ said Alice.
Carla looked up and saw her by the lamplight. The old woman sat by the bed, absorbed in the spectacle, as if seeing it for the first time.
Amparo cried out again and Carla sat up and put her to her nipple. The curtains were drawn back to let in the air. The sky was mauve, streaked with red tendrils. Fires crackled in the yard below and sparks flew upwards in the gloaming. Voices and laughter. The smell of roast pork. Grymonde’s feast. Carla felt hungry. Alice had an iron tripod warming over a candle. When Amparo was fed, Alice brought over a bowl of broth and set it by the bed.
Carla wrapped Amparo in a shawl and held her out. She was surprised by the tug in her heart at handing her ov
er, even to Alice, but the joy in Alice’s face banished the feeling. Carla swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. She needed to use the pot. She asked to be excused and Alice walked to the window, murmuring to the babe. Carla stood up, amazed at how light her body seemed. She was unsteady but felt strong enough. Her stomach cramped in a late contraction. She left some clots in the chamber pot but not enough to worry her. Alice returned and sat in her chair and Carla sat on the bed and ate. The broth was good.
‘Should we swaddle her?’ asked Carla.
‘It’s up to you. Most do. But this woman doesn’t believe in swaddling bands. What young living thing would want her arms and legs bound tight? It makes no sense. There’s plenty bonds in life without having to start off in them. A nicely tucked shawl is enough, and as much of your skin as she can get.’
‘Show me how you would do it.’
Alice produced a white linen clout and demonstrated the knots and folds that would keep it round the baby’s waist without chafing her. She stood back to let Carla practise. What delight. They swaddled Amparo in a shawl from Carla’s valise. Sounds came from downstairs: the front door opening to a waft of festive noise, which was muffled again when it closed.
Carla said, ‘Grymonde?’
Alice shook her head. ‘The house didn’t shake.’ She stood up and shuffled to the door. ‘Who’s there? Speak up or we’ll have your guts for garters.’
‘I’m looking for Grymonde,’ called a small, bold voice.
‘He’s not here.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I think it’s Estelle,’ said Carla. ‘Call her up.’
‘Come on up.’ Alice looked at Carla. ‘Estelle?’
‘One of Grymonde’s gang, I think.’
Alice frowned, as if she thought this unlikely.
Estelle appeared in the doorway and stopped. She was, if anything, even more filthy than when Carla had first met her. She was smeared from head to foot in damp soot. Her hair was matted with the stuff. Her arms and legs were covered with scratches and scrapes. Her eyes shone white from the black mask, fierce as ever. She didn’t enter the room.
‘Hellfire.’