Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris

by Tim Willocks

  It was twenty-five minutes to midnight.

  They still had time to reach the gate.

  Tannhauser strode back towards the wagon in the shadow of the warehouse.

  Fight them here; unknown numbers; win.

  Drive to the other side of the covered bridge.

  But there would be no fight there; only a wall; a blind cave and them in it.

  The shopkeeper appeared in the wedge of moonlight permitted by the meeting of the streets. He was six feet from the tip of the bolt when Tannhauser shot him through the pubic bone. He dropped the crossbow. He drew his sword as a second shape silvered in the moonbeam. An archer, arrow nocked, peering into the gloom.

  Tannhauser broached him through the left gut, two-handed but not too deep, and carved him wide on the pull. Lantern light. He stepped wide of the corner and evaded as the halberd came down at his head. Four men loomed at the junction. Five.

  ‘Tannzer! Look out!’

  The weight of the halberd’s axe head took it nigh to the ground. As the artisan leaned back on the shaft to control it, Tannhauser closed and severed his windpipe with a back stroke under the chin. He bore down on the others without watching him fall.

  The lantern was already moving away, back towards the Pont au Change. Its faint light betrayed the shapes of the three men left behind. Tannhauser raised the sword two-handed and feigned a head strike at the nearest. It was the dyer. Two stained fists raised the halberd shaft broadside to ward him, as expected. Tannhauser whipped the blade back down in an oblique arc, putting his back and chest into the hip swing. He chopped into the dyer’s left leg and cleaved the bone where it was narrowest, two inches north of the knee. He cut clean through the thigh on the pull.

  He stepped around the dyer to put him in the way of the next man, who was young and brawny enough to be keen to have at him. The brawny one wasted a blink on the severed leg and Tannhauser was on him, swatting the halberd across the man’s body with his left hand, and running the sword beneath the left ribs. He pulled short and palmed the ricasso from above and sliced down through the colon. He swept his ankles with the sole of his boot and the brawny one fell with a brawny wail of dismay. As Tannhauser turned he saw the third shape stagger backwards and land on his arse. An arrow projected from his belly and rose and fell with his groans.

  Juste stepped into the moonbeam and nocked another shaft to his bow.

  Tannhauser strode over and slipped the bow from Juste’s hand and shoved the handle of his sword in its place. The arrow was laid to the left and he took the string with his fingers. He marked the shadow that accompanied the jerking lantern.

  ‘With a bow the right weight you wouldn’t miss, but let’s be sure.’

  Tannhauser drew and shot the shadow in the back, from the way it arched and dropped likely in the lower spine. He handed the bow back to Juste and cleaned his sword and sheathed it. He nodded at the archer by the corner, who knelt on his head and elbows and stared at the coiled mass that squirmed from the gash in his gut.

  ‘See if that bow suits you, Juste. Broadheads into the bargain.’

  ‘My God,’ said Juste. ‘He’s still alive.’

  ‘Good. See if he wears a wrist guard.’

  Tannhauser went to retrieve the bodkin Juste had shot. Its victim clung onto the shaft in his belly as if loath to part with it. Tannhauser slapped his hands away and yanked out the arrow.

  ‘They’re all still alive,’ said Juste. ‘All six.’

  Juste stared at the diversity of wounded, each bemoaning appalling injuries or choking on the attempt. The dyer was the only one standing. He leaned on his halberd in lieu of his leg and cried out questions to God that received no answer.

  Tannhauser collected the crossbow and two halberds.

  He slid the bloody arrow into Juste’s quiver.

  They returned to the wagon. Tannhauser slid the poles by Grymonde. He drew the crossbow. He looked at his mates. They all looked at him. Their laughter was a memory difficult to recall. Their eyes shone in the lantern light, full of fear and hope. He saw them as they were, tags and rags tossed adrift on an ocean of madness. He met Carla’s eyes in the shadows. She gave him all he needed. The children needed a bright face, too.

  Tannhauser clenched his shoulder blades and grimaced and smiled.

  ‘The bridge is blocked.’ He sustained the smile. ‘We can’t get across the river.’

  Grymonde pursed his enormous lips. Burned muscles twitched.

  Tannhauser said, ‘We’re going to sail down it instead.’

  ‘Have you forgotten the boom?’ said Grymonde.

  ‘We’re going to break the boom,’ said Tannhauser.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Can my Infant handle a barge pole?’

  ‘Your brain has cracked. Cracked at last.’

  ‘Pascale.’ Tannhauser looked at her. ‘You said charcoal.’

  ‘Yes. The other barge was empty. Why?’

  ‘We’re going to run a fireship ahead of us.’

  He let Grymonde think about it.

  ‘We need a pilot. Juste? Hugon? Can you can steer a boat?’

  Hugon shook his head. Juste drew the string of his new bow as far as his ear.

  ‘I never tried, but I will.’

  ‘Shooting three bridges is no work for a novice,’ said Tannhauser.

  ‘I can handle a pair of oars,’ said Pascale.

  ‘I am no novice with a boat,’ said Carla. ‘As well you know.’

  Tannhauser had hoped to spare her the chore. He nodded.

  ‘Good enough. Lie down, all of you.’

  He climbed up beside Grégoire and stowed the crossbow behind him. He saw the luckless dyer lose his balance and topple backwards. He nodded to Grégoire. The wagon rolled forward through the shambles.

  ‘There’s a man there missing a leg. Trim the one he has left with the wheels.’

  Before they reached the dyer a feeble scream quavered up from below. The wagon was too heavy to transmit much of a bump. The back wheel excited a second anguished protest and no more pity than had the first.

  ‘That’s their governor’s ankles gone,’ said Hugon. ‘Chase us now, you cunt.’

  Tannhauser turned. Hugon was jeering back at the shopkeeper, whose feet were separated from his shins by two strips of wet stocking mired in a pool of blood.

  ‘Hugon, lie down.’

  The dyer screamed twice as bone and muscle gave way beneath the wheels.

  ‘Why didn’t you kill this lot, like you killed all the others?’ asked Hugon.

  ‘He wants them to die slowly,’ said Pascale. ‘When the militia come up from the river and find them screaming, they’ll waste time. And they’ll puke with fear.’

  As if to make her point, the dyer screamed again.

  ‘A fire barge?’ scoffed Grymonde. ‘It’s a fool’s errand.’

  ‘Then we’re well suited to the job,’ said Tannhauser.

  ‘We’ll be under the guns of the Louvre.’

  ‘The King didn’t want his capital turned into an abattoir. The militia have run riot on him and it’s their boom, not his. The palace guard won’t intervene without direct orders, and if we’re not out of Paris by the time they get them, we’ll be dead.’

  Tannhauser grabbed a stanchion beneath the seat and stepped down backwards onto the swingletree. As they passed the fallen lantern, he stooped and seized it.

  ‘That boom will take an age to catch and burn,’ said Grymonde.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But you propose to put me aboard a hell ship with nothing but a pole.’

  ‘Don’t fret, my Infant. We’ll both be on the hell ship.’

  ‘Is another Immortal part of the bargain?’

  ‘Perhaps it will improve your morale.’

  Tannhauser unwrapped an opium pill and bit it in two. He stored one half and rolled the other into a ball. Bitterness suffused his mouth. He passed the pill to Hugon. Grymonde watched its progress with empty eye sockets.

  ‘C
an I try one?’ asked Hugon.

  ‘You’re not hurt,’ said Estelle. ‘Give the Immortal to me.’

  ‘La Rossa, my darling, please don’t drop it.’

  The Immortal reached the Infant’s throat. He scowled at Tannhauser.

  ‘Short weight for the blind, is it? How well you have taken to Paris.’

  The chain across the Pont au Change was unmanned. They still had time to reach the Porte Saint-Denis. Had they reinforced the north end of the bridge?

  ‘Grégoire, stop. Juste, give me Frogier’s bow and bring your own.’

  He stripped his shirt off. The dried gore was chafing his armholes. And when it came to instilling fear, a bloody hide was second only to armour; perhaps not second at all. He put the shirt in the wagon. Tonight the Devil’s livery was more apt than Christ’s.

  He swung down and took four arrows and the bow in his left fist. As he walked to the chain he nocked a fifth. To all intents the bridge was a street; the street of money. It must have been the best-lit street in Paris. About every fifth shop on either side boasted a private watchman, and each had a lantern. He’d have to pass five or six and leave his back to them before he got sight of the far end. He looked Juste in the eye. The lad was sound.

  ‘Juste, stay out of sight. If any man moves after I pass him, shoot him.’

  ‘In the back?’

  ‘Wherever you think you can kill him.’

  Tannhauser unhooked the chain and dropped it. He wondered if he, in Juste’s shoes, would have shot him in the back, in revenge for his brothers. He thought not, at least not at that age. He strode down the middle of the street between the watchmen.

  He was within easy range of their pole arms. He let them take in the crusted detritus left streaked across his body by those who had tried before. He kept his face front. He didn’t trust his eyes not to provoke a man who might be in the mood. They looked too seasoned to do more than they’d been paid to do; but if it looked like he was losing, and to them it might, they’d pile in.

  He reached the summit of the bridge’s gentle camber. The end of the bridge was blocked by two carts, the shafts crossed and roped together. He saw the pan flash and turned sideways on the spot and thumbed the bowstring as the musket boomed ahead.

  Two guns, one per cart. He heard the ball pass but didn’t feel it. He drew the bow and aimed at the second cart through the smoke rolling out from the first. The sight of him provoked the second muzzle to waver as the pan flashed. Tannhauser let loose at the head behind it. The ball sang by. The musket clattered from the cart on this side of the barricade. He put a second bodkin through the side of the first cart and nocked again as a figure vaulted clear in panic, short of his gun.

  They would scatter before he could kill them all. By the time he moved the carts, they’d be back with help. A street fight all the way to the Porte Saint-Denis.

  The river it was, then. He turned back.

  The second watchman to his left lowered himself to his knees with the help of his spear and keeled over. One of the musket balls had found a mark. The watchman nearest the chain on the same side of the bridge dashed towards his fallen companion. Juste shot him in the back, just below the armhole. Tannhauser drew and shot the third watchman in the chest at fifteen feet. The man hadn’t moved but it cleared the east side.

  Tannhauser nocked and covered the men now shrinking into the doorways along the west side. One threw down his pike. The others thought it wise to do the same.

  Juste levered the shaft of his arrow back and forth with both hands as he tried to pluck it from the ribs of his floundering victim. The victim choked up blood with every cry. Tannhauser clapped Juste on the shoulder.

  ‘A good habit, but leave it. Come on, we’ll get to Poland yet.’

  ‘Are we going to Poland?’

  ‘Not tonight, but Poland will still be there tomorrow.’

  Tannhauser pulled him back to the cart.

  ‘Grégoire,’ he said, ‘avoid the next bridgehead.’

  ‘We’ll have to cross the street that cuts the island. They might see us.’

  ‘That will be their bad luck.’

  Tannhauser climbed aboard.

  ‘Take us to the quays at Saint-Landry.’

  They headed south and turned east into the street they’d taken earlier. Halfway down, Tannhauser saw torches pass south through the crossroads up ahead. The dark shapes of men marched by. Column of twos. More torches. A red and white banner.

  The Pilgrims of Saint-Jacques.

  Tannhauser retrieved the crossbow.

  ‘Grégoire, is there a choke point between that street and the quays?’

  Grégoire consulted the map in his brain. ‘No.’

  ‘Will Clementine charge through them?’

  ‘If I tell her to.’

  The Pilgrims would need minutes to reorganise. Clementine’s speed would give him several more by the time they reached the quays. Tannhauser slotted a bolt.

  ‘Then tell her. The rest of you hold on tight.’

  Grégoire rose to his feet and emitted the kind of snarl that only those who work with horses learn to master. Coming from his malformed palate, it scared Tannhauser, too. He leaned back on the bench as the wagon lurched after the huge grey haunches.

  The shapes up ahead heard the hooves. Shouts. They leaped back.

  Clementine thundered through the crossing.

  Tannhauser faced left. The column stretched back over the Pont Notre-Dame for as far as he could see, a mounted man among them. Tannhauser turned and got a glimpse to the right. Another score or so. A church on the corner. Tannhauser turned back on the bench and sighted down the length of the crossbow. A torch. A cluster of the curious surged into the street behind the wagon. He shot the torchbearer in the chest. The street cleared. Tannhauser turned and toed the stirrup. Clementine faltered and snorted.

  ‘Faster, Grégoire.’

  Grégoire snarled and snapped the reins. As Tannhauser hauled the sinews to the nut he saw the lance dangling and bouncing from Clementine’s flank, just forward of the stifle. She raised herself to Grégoire’s call and strained against her collar and something burst inside her. She veered rightwards and Grégoire leant back on the reins to straighten her up. She straightened. The right wheel gouged splinters from the corner of the next row of houses and Tannhauser tossed the crossbow and grabbed the bench and threw his spare arm around Grégoire’s waist as the boy fell.

  The back of the wagon sheered left and they tilted on two wheels and screams erupted behind him. A heave from Clementine’s mighty chest righted them and they crashed back down and she pulled on, trying to recover her stride, the wagon now faster than she, the swingletree chaffing her hocks. Grégoire still held the reins and Tannhauser grabbed them short and hauled. Whether from panic or courage, the great beast drove onwards. If she ran herself till she fell she’d upend them. He found the brake with his heel and threw his weight on it. Filth sprayed and the wheel smoked and the wagon slowed.

  Clementine foundered in the traces and toppled onto her side with a groan.

  Tannhauser let go of Grégoire and the reins and vaulted down. He unbolted and lowered the sideboard. Carla swung her legs down and stood up, the nightingale in her arms. Pascale pulled the Mice to their feet one by one and pushed them towards him. He lifted them down as Estelle jumped by herself. She reached back for her crossbow.

  ‘Leave it, take this lantern instead. Hugon, fetch the satchels and wallets.’

  Pascale had slung the saddle holsters over one shoulder. She took the double-barrelled pistol and the larger of the food sacks and sat on the mattress to swing down.

  Tannhauser saw Juste jump from the rear and run back into the dark.

  Grymonde had disappeared.

  Tannhauser spotted a damp black patch on the mattress where Carla had lain.

  ‘Can you walk, love?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He didn’t know if she could. She couldn’t know either. Her body had taken more punishme
nt than all but the dead. He guessed the quay at three hundred yards.

  ‘Pascale, with me. Drop the sack.’

  They ran towards the back of a massive figure who stood in a swath of moonlight at the crossroad that had doomed the wagon. Grymonde bellowed defiance into the night, shaking the mace above his head. An arrow skipped from a wall. Juste stood ahead of Grymonde, in the same moonbeam and well within range of the mace, as he loosed a broadhead at the torches in the distance. Tannhauser clapped Grymonde on the back and grabbed the wrist that held the mace while shouting in his ear.

  ‘My Infant, are you feeling stout?’

  The mace came down without disaster. The whited holes turned.

  ‘Have we reached the hell ship?’

  ‘Not yet. Give me the mace. Go with Pascale to the wagon.’

  ‘Will you teach me how to shoot a bow?’ asked Pascale.

  ‘On my word. Keep to the dark. Get the others ready to move.’

  Tannhauser dropped the mace. Another arrow passed, better ranged. He grabbed Juste and pulled him from the moonlight to the wheel-splintered house this side of the crossing. He unslung his own bow. He grabbed four shafts and nocked. The torches ahead had retreated but there was moonlight at the main crossroads, too. He picked a black outline and winged a bodkin into it. Other shapes fled as it reeled and fell.

  ‘Stay in shadow. Pick your man. They will try to flank us down this street to your left. Keep them scared and let me know as soon as you see them.’

  Another arrow sped by. Their archer was using the dark, too.

  ‘I’m going forward,’ said Tannhauser. ‘Don’t shoot me.’

  Tannhauser ran low through the blackness. Shouts and oaths floated about the labyrinth, distance and location difficult to judge, consternation not so. None of the Pilgrims counted on dying tonight. Between this row of houses and the church was an open space. The archer stepped out thence and drew, his aim already chosen. Tannhauser pulled and shot him in the gut and knocked him onto his back.

  Twenty feet more. Worth the trouble.

  He nocked as he ran to the archer. He stooped to the quiver and snatched a fistful of arrows and the archer reached up for his throat. Tannhauser stabbed him in the face with a dozen broadheads. He turned left as a man ran at him from the church space, sword committed to a lunge. He let him come, sidestepped, warding lightly with the bow, and plunged the bundle of broadheads into his neck and left them there. A third man ran away and Tannhauser stepped aside and drew. The runner ran head-first into a fourth Pilgrim who rounded the corner of the church with a torch. As the arrow flew, the runner clasped the torchbearer’s waist and the bodkin drilled his face, cheek to cheek, and nailed him to the other’s chest. They shuffled from sight like apprentice dancers summoned to some ballet of the crazed, and Tannhauser turned to the erstwhile swordsman who knelt on his heels and gargled on his own gore. Tannhauser recovered the broadheads with the feeling of uprooting rushes from boggy ground.