Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris (12 page)

The house was built with too many windows and none of them were barred or even shuttered. The rich put sheets on their windows, as if they were too grand to need protection. At the second-floor landing the stairway doubled back on itself and bent down towards the front door hallway. To the left at the ground level was a room full of desks and big books. To the right was the kitchen. Each had a shorter, higher window to stop people peering in from the street. Through the kitchen door she saw a quiver of arrows and a strange foreign bow laid out on a table.

Moonlight filled the hallway from the windows in the stairwell on each floor. Towards the rear of the house, black blood was pooled and smeared on the hallway floor. She guessed it was Gobbo’s.

Altan grabbed her hair and lifted her from the ground.

Estelle squirmed and kicked at his thighs. She knew he wanted to kill her but she remembered madame’s order and she knew Altan would obey. She also knew Altan was right: he should kill her. Estelle liked madame, the lady from the south. Carla? She was sorry Grymonde would kill her.

Estelle screamed as Altan threw her down and rubbed her face in the gore. It was still warm, thick and greasy. She clamped her lips tight but the blood went up her nostrils and she was forced to breathe. The blood clung to the inside of her throat and she coughed and opened her mouth and breathed in more. She couldn’t scream any more.

She was going to die in Gobbo’s blood.

Altan hauled her upright. Coughs racked her. She retched blood. She was blinded but Altan held her wrists and she couldn’t wipe her eyes. He shook her by the hair. She tried to spit at him. He slapped her face again, hard, but not as hard as Gobbo had hit her in the street. He pulled open the back door of the house.

‘Look,’ said Altan.

He twisted her around to face the outside of the door. A cord was strung from a wrought iron knocker twice the size of her fist. The knocker was fashioned in the shape of a bee. The end of the cord was looped around Gobbo’s neck. Gobbo was dead and he was naked. His broken legs were canted at strange angles. Both were covered in stripes of blood that ran from the black hole tufted by his pubic hair. His eyeballs bulged at the moon. He’d been stabbed in the chest. Shoved into Gobbo’s mouth were his severed cock and balls.

Estelle lived with Gobbo. He and his brother, Joco, slept in the same bed as her mother, Typhaine, though Estelle didn’t think she let them swive her, at least not unless she was drunk, which wasn’t very often any more. Estelle had never liked either of them. She only liked Grymonde. She loved Grymonde. Grymonde was her dragon.

She looked at Gobbo’s bleeding corpse and felt no pity. She wondered if Altan had cut his cock and balls off before he died. She hoped so.

Altan shoved her into the courtyard. He pointed at Gobbo.

In his strange voice he said, ‘Tell your master: come and see! Come and see!’

Estelle stumbled across the yard towards the alleys beyond. She saw movement there. That was where most of them were hiding – Altan must know it – waiting for her to open the door. Instead they would be looking at Gobbo and getting afraid. Afraid of the mad Turk who had hung him on the door and cut his balls off.

Grymonde would not be afraid. He didn’t know how to be.

Altan was as vicious as a cornered rat, and as clever. But he did not know that no matter how much the others were afraid of him, and his bloody door, they would always be more afraid of Grymonde. Estelle was afraid, too. She had failed her dragon.

She scrubbed Gobbo’s blood from her face with the skirt of her smock. She thought of her rats. Her rats would lick her clean. She promised herself she would bring her rats to feast on Altan’s corpse.

TANNHAUSER AWOKE TO
some obscure sound and swung to his feet with his dagger. A spasm knifed his back and he blasphemed. He grabbed his sword. The atmosphere was stifling. After the darkness of his dreams the glow from the open door was sufficient to see by.

He walked into the parlour where the candles had burned down to their nubs. He saw a platter of bread and meat and a jug of wine on the table. Someone had been in and out while he slept. The lock in the front door scraped and he realised he had been woken by the jangle of keys. The door opened to reveal the night guard. Behind him stood Grégoire and Arnauld de Torcy. Something had changed in Arnauld since that afternoon. His youth had vanished.

‘The madness has begun.’

‘What madness?’

‘With luck, you can make use of it. Hurry.’

Tannhauser cut a wedge of mutton. He ate as he returned to the bedroom. He pulled on his boots and his black linen shirt, the white cross spattered with blood. He buckled on his belt and sheathed his weapons. As he turned back to the door he saw for the first time that there was a second bed, or, rather, a low pallet, in the room. It lay in an alcove, against the far wall. Under a damp sheet lay a body. The body lay with his face to the wall and shivered in the gloom, as if some ague were shaking his bones. Tannhauser hoped it wasn’t catching. He returned to the parlour and rifled a pint of wine down his throat and cut another slice of meat. He joined his saviours in the corridor.

‘The frock for the baby,’ said Grégoire. ‘I left it in there.’

Tannhauser swallowed the mutton. ‘Go and get it.’

Grégoire dashed inside the cell.

‘What time is it?’

‘Almost four,’ said Arnauld. ‘The screams of the King have been terrible to hear.’

‘Why? Did he lose a game of tennis?’

Arnauld was not amused.

‘This is a darker night than you can imagine. Your creature was arrested trying to climb into a second-floor window of the
Pavillon du Roi
, from the building works of the new South Wing.’

‘He’s a resourceful lad.’

‘He was lucky not to be killed before I was called.’

‘You’ve earned my eternal friendship, a treasure few can claim. Why was I arrested?’

‘I have no idea.’

Arnauld glanced back into the cell for some sign of Grégoire.

Tannhauser went back inside. The robe was precious only in sentiment. He saw Grégoire going into the bedroom with the water jug in his hands. Crumpled under his arm was the cloth package.

‘Grégoire, what are you doing?’

‘The other prisoner asked for water in his sleep.’

‘Let the other prisoner be damned.’

A parched groan drifted from the bedroom.

Tannhauser grabbed a candle, snatched the jug from Grégoire and plunged into the room. He hoped he was wrong. He set the light down by the pallet. He rolled the prisoner onto his back.

‘Orlandu.’

Somewhere beyond the windowless walls a bell began to toll.

Orlandu’s cheeks were sunken beneath a clammy brow. Tannhauser thumbed his eyes open. They were socketed too deep in his skull. His pupils were shrunken to dots. He showed no sign of awareness. Tannhauser slid an arm beneath his shoulders. Through the saturated shirt, he could feel Orlandu’s body burning. Opium and fever. He raised him up and Orlandu groaned. Tannhauser put the jug to his lips and poured. Orlandu swallowed.

Tannhauser set the jug down and lowered Orlandu back to the pallet. He stripped away the wet sheet, which released a whiff of putrefaction. Orlandu was fully dressed. The left sleeve of his shirt had been cut away and his arm was bandaged from elbow to armpit. Tannhauser ran his fingertips over the bandage. It was stained brown and boggy to the touch. The bandage was wrapped too tight; the arm had swollen grossly. At either edge of the dressing the exposed skin was fiery and tense with the spreading corruption. Tannhauser felt Orlandu’s neck and found lumps beneath the jaw. A mortifying wound; perhaps even gangrene. If the poisonous humours spread to the blood, they could kill the strongest man within hours. Arnauld arrived.

‘The tocsin has sounded. We must go.’

‘Fetch the guard.’

Tannhauser looked down on Orlandu. The putrefaction had to be drained, the rotten flesh trimmed. The arm might even require amputation. Arnauld returned with the guard.

‘Tell me your name.’

The guard shuffled. ‘Jean, sire.’

‘Tell me, Jean, when did Captain Le Tellier bring this prisoner here?’

‘Yesterday evening, sire.’ He frowned in thought. ‘That is, Friday evening, not Saturday.’

Thirty hours since. And it was Le Tellier.

‘And the prisoner was already wounded.’

‘He was as you see him, sire. That is, his wound had been dressed, though he has taken much more poorly since last night. That is, early Saturday morning.’

‘Did you call help?’

‘Oh yes, sire. A physician attended him and left that potion.’

Jean pointed to the floor beneath the bed. A small bottle lay there, its glass stopper uncorked. The bottle was empty, its essence fled. Tannhauser picked it up and licked the rim. Tincture of opium. He threw the bottle at Jean. It bounced from his face and shattered.

‘A physician? The lad needs a surgeon.’

Jean cringed at this injustice. Tannhauser leaned over him.

‘If he dies, you will answer to Anjou, who holds him most dear.’

The name dwarfed any authority Dominic Le Tellier might wield.

‘What should I do, sire?’

‘Can you spare two men to carry him?’

‘All the guards are called to arms. I’m holding the night watch alone.’

‘Help me get him over my shoulder.’

The bell continued to toll.

As they stalked the ill-lit corridors of the East Wing Tannhauser was grateful for the opium. Without it Orlandu would have found the journey unendurable; in the event, he hardly stirred.

‘Tell me where to find Ambroise Paré.’

‘The King’s surgeon?’ said Arnauld.

‘He treated Coligny. He must be nearby.’

‘At the King’s request Paré is lodging with Coligny, at the Hôtel Béthizy.’

‘How far is that?’

‘From the gate, ten minutes on foot, but it’s not possible –’

‘My son is dying.’

‘The streets will be impassable. The killing is about to begin.’

Tannhauser felt his bowels shift. Arnauld stopped and opened a door.

‘Coligny is to be murdered – along with his brethren. See.’

Arnauld led them into a room that looked out from the east face of the building and opened a window. Beyond the
hôtels
on the far side of the square stood the church whose bell was ringing. To the north of the church, a mixed column of troops, bearing torches, wound through the streets, roughly parallel to the river. At their head were two score horsemen, followed by squads of arquebusiers, their match cords pinpoints of red. At the rear came the hedged blades of the halberdiers.

Tannhauser guessed their number at around two hundred.

‘Who commands them?’

‘Guise.’

‘Tell me everything.’

‘After many hours, His Majesty was persuaded – much against his conscience – to order the execution of the Huguenot leadership. That was the scream I heard from outside the room:
God’s death, then kill them all! Kill them all, so that not a single one may blame me
!
’

‘And the nobles here in the Louvre?’

‘Their throats are being cut as we speak.’

‘Ambroise Paré is a Huguenot,’ said Tannhauser.

‘Paré’s genius will be spared, at the King’s explicit command.’

‘So he’s not so distraught as to waste his finest surgeon.’

‘Catherine’s suggestion. Navarre and Condé will also be spared, for they are princes of the royal blood. But no one else. I begged Anjou for the life of my friend, Brichanteau. Anjou said that everyone had a friend they would like to spare. Even La Rochefoucauld, who has been intimate with the King since childhood, must die along with the rest. Anjou said:
A king who cannot kill his dearest friends for the good of his people is no king at all
.’

Tannhauser grimaced.

A volley of gunfire reached them. He squinted. Knots of fighting had broken out in the streets. Men stumbled from the houses, half-dressed, the moonlight winking on their swords. The Huguenots were turning out to defend their leader. Muzzle flashes lit up the darkness.

‘The bells of other churches are ringing,’ said Tannhauser. ‘Why?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Are they calling out the militias?’

‘The militia have orders to maintain peace and tranquillity throughout the city.’

‘Nothing more?’

‘The militia is to stand by, ready to prevent anarchy and disorder, nothing more. The assassinations are in the hands of Guise and the Swiss Guard. His Majesty has been assured that this business will be accomplished neatly, before the sun is up.’

Tannhauser headed back to the corridor. He looked either way and found it empty.

Gunfire echoed through the palace.

Arnauld and Grégoire joined him. They descended a broad staircase through the tang of powder smoke. Screams of fear and pain echoed around the walls below. They were halfway down when a man started scrambling up the steps. He was barefoot and wore a nightshirt that was slashed and wet with blood. He stopped as he saw them. Two Swiss Guard emerged from the gloom.

‘Alas, I have done nothing, good sirs,’ said the fugitive. ‘Grant me refuge, I beg you.’

Tannhauser anchored his balance with a hand on the banister rail and kicked the refugee in the chest. The wounded man flung out his arms and rolled down the stairs. He landed on his back at the feet of the guards, and their halberds ploughed his gut and chest until his cries had long ceased and his blood and entrails lapped over their boots.

Tannhauser stopped three steps above them. They saw the body over his shoulder. Troops were schooled to a certain tone of command, one Tannhauser had employed the world over.

‘The upper floors are clear.’ Tannhauser nodded at the disembowelled corpse. ‘Haul this traitor to the courtyard. Don’t let any more of them get away from you.’

The guards grabbed the dead man’s ankles and dragged him away. The nightshirt rode up round his armpits and the wounds that punctured his nakedness oozed ropes of blood.