by Tim Willocks
‘I will show you. First you will practise with me, then with Grymonde. But there’s another task I must ask of you. A greater one.’
‘I’ll do it,’ said La Rossa.
A flame of love hotter than the skewer that had bored his skull seared Grymonde’s heart. She was his daughter. But he was her dragon. He fought to stay without.
‘In this world of blood and thunder, of which we spoke,’ said Tannhauser, ‘anything can happen. My task is to find Carla, so that the sisters and their mother might be together, and go home. In that task I might fail. But whether I fail or whether I win, the attempt demands that I leave you here awhile, and I must ask brave Grégoire to leave you, too, on other business.’
The lad garbled what Grymonde took to be his consent.
‘I know you will, lad,’ said Tannhauser. ‘Estelle, Carla trusted you to take care of Amparo. So do I. I give all my power of judgement to you. You are a clever girl. The men who blinded Grymonde and killed your mother might come here. If you think Amparo is in danger, I ask you to take her back to Cockaigne. Will you do that?’
‘Yes.’
‘If I live, I will find you. If I die, you will have to find a woman who will give Amparo milk. Can you do that?’
‘Yes. You don’t want me to take her to the nuns?’
‘I’d rather you raised her in Cockaigne than have her adopted by the Pope himself. I dare say Carla would agree. If you take her there, you must leave Grymonde to die in battle. Can you do that? Can you leave him to die?’
Grymonde listened to a longer silence. A silence he longed to break for there was nothing he wanted more than thus to die. He felt a hand slide into his, a small hand, and he held it so softly that he felt her fingers squeeze his.
‘Yes,’ said La Rossa. ‘I can leave him to die.’
‘Good girl. Now, come here, and let me show you how to shoot this crossbow.’
‘Why do you carry two bows?’ she asked.
‘A good question. The arrows made for one bow will not fly true from the other. For one bow the spine in the shafts is too soft, and for the other too hard.’
‘How do you know?’
‘I learned it. Some things are made to work in harmony, like you and Amparo, and Grymonde, and Grégoire and I. And some things are not.’
Grymonde smiled. Perhaps it was the Immortals, though he did not think so, but he had never known such harmony in his life. La Rossa’s hand slipped away and Grymonde was alone again, but he did not mind. An image rose and filled his blackness.
He had not yet thought to wonder what Tannhauser looked like.
He had never seen the man.
Now he did.
Tannhauser was Death.
Grymonde laughed.
It must have been catching, for Tannhauser laughed, too.
Perhaps a laugh was just what was needed, for the lad, Grégoire, joined in, and so did La Rossa, and the sound of their laughter conjured a vision sweet indeed.
‘Four men are coming,’ said La Rossa. ‘One has a lantern.’
‘Are they armed?’ asked Grymonde.
‘Two have crossbows, like ours, and swords and clubs and knives.’
‘Helmets?’
‘All of them, and two have breastplates.’
‘Do they look like villains? Bravos?’
‘Yes. The sergent at the door waved at them. They didn’t wave back.’
Grymonde felt serene, which was as well, for he had no idea what to do. Tannhauser had gone to scout the rear of the Hôtel Le Tellier. He had sent Grégoire to procure a horse and wagon. He had left Grymonde and La Rossa behind the stockyard fence, by the gate.
‘If they go inside,’ said La Rossa, ‘Tannzer will never get to Carla.’
Grymonde wasn’t so sure, but no doubt the bravos were a handicap.
‘I can shoot one,’ said La Rossa, ‘and they’ll come after us. We’ve got the pistol, so I can shoot one more, at least. Then we can run, the way we came, and they’ll follow us.’
In more usual circumstances, Grymonde would have considered this plan reckless even by his standards. In his serenity, he could almost believe in it.
‘I can’t run,’ he said. ‘But you and the wren can. Promise me you will.’
‘Quickly,’ hissed La Rossa. ‘They’re going to climb the steps.’
He felt her pull on his belt and he took a step forward and held out the crossbow in his left hand, sideways to his body, the tiller level across his hips, as he had practised. He felt her shoulder against his belly as she took control. He heard a cooing sound from the wren. Fathers and daughters, he thought. Were there ever two such pairs as they?
‘I’m as proud of you as Tannhauser is of his wren. No, I am prouder.’
‘Quiet. Tannzer’s shot one. Hold strong. The door’s opening. He’s shot another, no two, with one arrow, it went through one and into the next, but he’s not dead. Hold strong!’
Grymonde gripped the stock and gave to the pressure of a final adjustment in her aim. The bolt flew. Beyond the slap of the sinew he heard yells of alarm and pain.
‘Pull the string, quickly, pull the string.’
Grymonde stooped and found his toes with the stirrup.
‘Tell me what you see.’
‘Tannzer charged, he’s stabbed the last bravo in the neck, the one wounded by the arrow, and the sergent’s run into the door and pushed it open to get inside, and Tannzer’s killed him, and they can’t shut the door, the body’s in the way. He’s charging in, there are men in there, I don’t know how many. I can’t see what’s happening any more.’
Grymonde drew the string with both hands and felt the click of the nut. He resumed his former stance and felt La Rossa slot home a fresh bolt. The last bravo?
‘You hit one of the bravos?’
‘Yes. But he’s crawling away. I’m going to shoot him again.’
‘Wait, he’s out of the fight and you might need the shot.’
‘Yes. He’s stopped crawling. Now, he’s crawling again, but slower. I think he’s going to die. There’s Tannzer! Tannzer’s come back out.’ She giggled. ‘He’s hit the crawler on the head with an iron club. He’s dragging two bodies up the steps and through the door.’
‘He is a reliable hand with a body, we must give him that.’
‘He’s come back out. He walking away, back to, no – he’s picked up a bow, he must have dropped it. He waved the bow at me.’
‘Call it a salute. You saved his neck.’
‘He’s dragging the last two bodies. They’re all inside. He’s shut the door.’
Grymonde felt her let go of the tiller. She put her arms round his waist and he felt her head against his belly. He raised the crossbow high. He felt her trembling. He felt the pressure of a small lump.
‘Watch out for the wren. Are you crying?’
She stepped back. ‘No.’
He groped with his free hand. ‘Where are you?’
‘There’s a sergent coming, from the river. He’s going to the house.’
Grymonde thought about this. La Rossa’s thoughts were faster.
‘Get ready. When he gets near the lantern over the steps, I’m going to shoot him.’
Grymonde lowered and levelled the crossbow. La Rossa took the tiller.
‘It’s Sergent Rody.’
‘Rody? The stupid bastard.’
‘He’s got someone with him, by the arm. A boy. Wait, it’s Hugon.’
‘Our Hugon?’
‘Tell him to run. Shout loud. Quickly.’
Grymonde inhaled and bellowed.
‘Hugon! Run! Run for your very soul!’
His burns exploded across his face.
‘Hold it steady!’ said La Rossa.
He clenched the stock. The sinew sang.
‘I got Rody in the top of the legs, in the balls I think. He’s fallen on the steps.’
‘Take me to Rody, hurry. Good shot, La Rossa, good shot.’
‘Hugon’s coming.’
Grymonde
swung the crossbow and struck the fence, and propped the weapon against it. He felt the pistol disappear from his belt. He heard clicks.
‘Don’t shoot him.’
‘I won’t.’
Estelle grabbed his index finger and tugged and he followed her.
‘Rody, eh?’ he said. ‘Little fish taste sweet.’
‘Grymonde?’
Hugon’s voice was threaded with horror. Grymonde wondered why.
‘Are you hurt, boy?’
‘No.’
‘Take Rody’s knife, and his bow, and be careful. Set me over him.’
La Rossa placed him. He heard gasps of pain. He stuck out a toe and hit a leg.
‘Jesus Christ Almighty on the Cross.’
Rody’s terror seemed excessive even for one facing death. Grymonde remembered the holes in his face. Quite a sight, he imagined. He grinned and Rody cried out.
Grymonde dropped to his knees and felt bones crunch inside the flesh that cushioned his fall. Fingers grappled for his throat and he grabbed a wrist and plucked it away and took the hand attached to it and crushed it and wrung it like washing until it felt like a purse filled with gravel. Flames burst over his face and carried him upwards in a spiral of ecstasy, and of the next moments he knew little, only the vague impression of something like a wicker basket giving way beneath his knuckles, and of something like a pewter vase cracking on stone and turning soggy, and of hair and blood sticking to his hands. He heard La Rossa’s voice and the ecstasy spiralled back down into mere serenity, though a more gratifying species thereof than he had felt before.
He stood up and swayed.
‘Hugon? Are you there? Put Rody’s ankle in my hand. La Rossa, guide me.’
He hauled Rody into the stockyard.
Estelle gave him the crossbow and he drew it.
‘Hugon, explain yourself.’
‘I followed Carla and her violl from the Yards.’
‘And you let Rody catch you?’ Grymonde laughed, he felt in a kindly fashion. ‘But well done, and don’t fret, Tannhauser’s gone in to get Carla back.’
‘Gone in where?’ said Hugon.
‘Hugon, why are your clothes wet?’ asked La Rossa.
‘In Le Tellier’s hôtel, where else?’ Grymonde felt serene but confused. ‘Wet?’
Hugon said, ‘Carla isn’t in the hôtel.’
Grymonde laughed. The lad was entitled to poke him back.
‘Be quiet,’ said La Rossa.
‘Hugon jests.’
‘He does not jest. Hugon, if Carla isn’t in the hôtel, where is she?’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The Angel
THE ANGEL WATCHED Tannhauser close the door of the hôtel and she knew he would not find within what he needed to find, the grail for which he quested, the mystery whose solution he had sought all his life, and which he would not find anywhere except in the last place he might look, which was in himself. In the Hôtel Le Tellier he would only find reasons to inflict more horror. He would so do without hesitation, but not without cost.
The Angel was sad.
His life he held cheap by virtue of the fact that he possessed it. It offended him that he should possess it while others nobler and gentler than him did not; when others nobler and gentler than him had been robbed of life’s beauty in front of his eyes. This injustice, this flaw in the logic of being, was the sin he would carry to his grave; and maybe beyond.
Yet he also gambled the lives of those for whom he would die. He gambled the lives of those for whom he would destroy the world, and those same lives with it. This other flaw in the logic of being, if such it was – for the Angel claimed no authority in such matters – did not offend him, for he knew, somehow, that being was more than mere life.
He would let his daughter, Amparo, ride through a Hell that only men of all living things, mortal or immortal, could make, in the arms of a tatterdemalion girl, on the shoulders of a blinded monster, because he knew, though he could not say how, that his daughter, not yet half a day breathing, had already known perfection of being, and of ecstasy and of beauty and of love, and of Life Her-own-self, even if she knew nothing at all of the world.
These wagers on the Wheel of Fortune, and the direful deeds in whose metal those wagers were minted, tortured him, as if to that wheel his limbs had been bound and broken. Yet of that pain no one would know, for he would let none know it. To reveal it would earn him no more than sympathy, and that meagre coin he scorned, for it would only weaken him. No one knew but he and the angels.
In this squalid realm no other dared such knowing, or such wagers, as dared he; and it was this power to dare, more than his skill in arms or his understanding of men, that made him so appalling. No other could see and stand and face the cost to his soul without losing not just his soul, for souls were lost carelessly enough, but his mind.
The Angel was Love. All angels were love, the risen and the fallen, those winged with black, those winged with white. That was their purpose. It was not their purpose to see what will be. But this Angel knew Tannhauser was right.
He would not die in Paris.
The Wheel would not be that kind.
She knew the black-winged angel who watched over him. She loved him, the Angel with Black Wings, and he loved her, and they both loved Tannhauser and Carla, not just because they were angels and could do no other, but because they had loved them both, each in their way, since the moment they each had set eyes on them. Both of them. All of them. This Angel could only know but not explain. Perhaps the Angel with Black Wings could explain, for he was brilliant and she was not. This Angel knew that Tannhauser had loved her, and loved still, and yet he had never told her so.
This Angel had been many things. She had frolicked in the mountains with fighting bulls. She had made music with Carla where music was more precious than rubies. Naked she had swum through powder smoke and blood to feel the joy of him inside her, and to give him the joy of being inside her. She had been the road down which Tannhauser had walked to find the power to love Carla. Down such strange roads had Carla walked to love Tannhauser. And here sat the nightingale, cooing in her kidskin, in the thin, brave embrace of the tatterdemalion girl, a girl such as this strange Angel, once, herself had been.
How beautiful.
She wondered, this Angel, if Tannhauser were not some kind of angel, too, for he was engaged in the same task as she, of trying to guide these children through Hell. If so, what colour might his wings be? She laughed and Estelle turned in the stockyard and looked at her.
He’s my blood-red rose.
‘Who is your blood-red rose?’ said Estelle.
Tannhauser.
‘Of course,’ said Estelle.
Red is the colour of my true love’s wings.
‘Oh, I would love to see them.’
One day you will, but not today.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The Juggler
IN THE HALL of the hôtel, Tannhauser checked the bodies for life by the light of the chandelier. He found none. A breathing sergent might have been useful, but he had erred on the side of inflicting lethal wounds. He listened and heard no sounds. The slain had died with a variety of sighs and prayers, but no screams; desperate men in a brawl didn’t scream, unless killed badly, and these had been killed well. They’d had no reason to call out for help; they had been the help. No more of a din, then, than might attend the arrival of four bravos.
He bolted the front door. He went to the back door and opened it. He dragged in the body of the sergent he had shot in the chest before he’d happened on the bravos in the street. He retrieved the bodkin.
Nine men in all.
Le Tellier must have been feeling insecure; and likely now felt safe.
Tannhauser could have used his own watchman, in case of chance arrivals, but he didn’t want Estelle and young Amparo in the house. He took Altan’s horn bow from his chest and hung it, with the quiver of broadheads, on the baluster at the foot of the stairs. He do
ubted there was another man in the city able to draw it. The bowstring dripped with blood where it had crossed his chest. He ran his fingers down its length and flicked away the gore. He took the crossbow he had dragged in with one of the bravos. He drew it and armed it and shoved four spare bolts in the back of his belt. He kept Frogier’s bow on his left shoulder.
He made a quick search of the rooms on the ground floor.
All were empty but one, which was locked and showed no light underneath. If anyone had had the sense to lock it from inside, in the dark, they would be glad to stay that way. He let it be. He retrieved the flanged steel mace he had used to brain the dying bravo.
He climbed the staircase.
More doors. No lights within. No sounds. He let them be, too.
He headed south across the landing and down the corridor. The corridor opened into a lamp-lit ante-room. The door to the office was gilded with a cockleshell emblem. He listened. He heard a thin voice, a whine. Petit Christian. He paused.
In Le Tellier’s shoes, he would have at least one bodyguard with him. Two? Two would be undignified, and a second would be better placed below; but two at most. If he were cautious, he would send Petit Christian to answer the door. The door opened inwards, hinged on the right. The bodyguard, were he worth his station, would be ready with gun or crossbow. If the guard answered, all the better.
Tannhauser propped the mace by the doorjamb. He unhitched the bow and quiver and left them, too. He couldn’t do much about his accent, except raise the pitch half an octave and muffle it with feigned deference. He held the crossbow upright by the stock in his left hand. He knocked twice, lightly, and tried to sound timid.
‘Excellency, with your permission, the new men are here.’
He stepped back a pace, his left foot forward and outside the edge of the door. He put a spare bolt between his teeth. A pause. The door opened. Tannhauser kicked Petit Christian through the pubic bone and felt it give way. The toad flew back to reveal a sergent levelling an arquebus at the far end of the room.
‘Baro!’
Tannhauser presented a target until he saw the match flick down. The priming flared as he swivelled back behind the wall. The blast must have deafened those within. He felt the wind of the squandered ball and spun back into the doorway and lowered the crossbow.