Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris (69 page)

‘Can we come with you?’ asked Estelle.

‘No,’ said Grymonde. ‘Wait here for us. You’ll be safe.’

Estelle looked at Tannzer.

‘I can still fly on his back. I can be the eyes of the dragon, instead of the wings.’

Tannzer studied her. She saw the invisible things that made her tremble. He looked at Amparo. Estelle trembled more. Tannzer poked Grymonde with an elbow.

‘What does Estelle mean?’

‘I’ve carried La Rossa on my shoulders, many times, all over the city.’

Tannzer packed the powder flask. He untied the knot in the strap and hung the satchel across Grymonde’s chest. Estelle pulled out the key hanging round her neck.

‘Can I wind the Peter Peck?’

Tannzer looked at her again, then held the pistol while she wound it.

‘Grymonde, in what casket of treasure did you find this girl?’

‘That’s a tale now known only to me, and I’ll never tell it.’

Tannzer beckoned a boy with a harelip. The boy held a bald dog by a leash.

‘Grégoire, this is Estelle, and her sister, my new daughter, Amparo.’

Grégoire smiled and bowed. He was ugly, uglier than the dog, but seemed nice.

‘Grégoire, I see a kidskin on the table there. Empty it and bring it over.’

Tannzer stuck the pistol in Grymonde’s belt.

‘The pistol is for Estelle,’ said Tannzer. ‘If she asks for it, give it to her.’

‘What madness is this?’ said Grymonde.

‘My daughter comes with me,’ said Tannzer.

Tannzer looked at Estelle. She held her breath.

‘If it is her desire, her sister, Estelle, will come with us, too.’

‘No,’ said Grymonde. ‘She will not.’

Estelle wanted to go with them. The idea made Grymonde suffer, but why? Why did he want her to stay here, with the dead, and without her sister? She didn’t dare speak.

‘Can children make such decisions?’ asked Tannzer.

Estelle almost said,
Yes!
But although the two big men were talking about what she wanted to do, she knew she would have to do what they wanted. She bit her tongue.

‘Clearly, they can,’ said Tannzer. ‘Should we let them? Or should we reckon their wisdom less than ours, here, in the Hell that the likes of you and I have slaved to build around them? I do not know. What say you, my Infant?’

‘The Infant does not say.’

‘This day has taken me beyond all knowing, short of what I know of the worst, that is, the worst I know I can do. That limit I hope not to reach, though if I have to breach it, I will not hesitate. Such crimes aside, I can only blunder forward, as blind as you are, with naught but my heart and my gut to guide my way.’

Estelle watched Grymonde’s burned face twitch. She loved him.

Grégoire returned, shaking drops of wine from the kidskin.

‘I say this only as a fact, not as a threat to sway your mind,’ said Tannzer, ‘but if Estelle stays, you stay, too. Without her, you are a stone in my boot.’

Estelle was proud that Tannzer wanted her to come, but she didn’t want to leave the dragon. That choice scared her.

‘If your purpose holds,’ said Grymonde, ‘and you pick the Devil’s pocket, and you and your wife and child escape Paris, will you take La Rossa with you?’

Estelle tried to imagine what this meant. She couldn’t. But she wanted to go.

Tannzer smiled, like she imagined a wolf might smile. He took the kidskin from Grégoire and cut away the neck and spout. Estelle was confused.

‘What future awaits her here?’ said Grymonde. ‘Plague and the brothel.’

‘Estelle, if you want to stay here, say so,’ said Tannzer. ‘It would be the brighter call. I am going to wade a river of blood and there’s no telling who will reach the far side bank. But Amparo is coming with me, even should the red tide drown the both of us.’

‘Oh, I want to come with you. So does Amparo.’

‘What say you now, my Infant?’

‘The dragon can’t fly without La Rossa. He never could.’

Tannzer pulled the kidskin inside out. He held it open in front of her.

‘Put Amparo in here. This will be her cradle. You will carry her home.’

Estelle understood: of course Tannzer would take her with him.

She slipped Amparo inside the kidskin. She filled it quite snugly and her little face peered over the top. Estelle laughed. She looked so sweet. Tannzer stooped and tightened Estelle’s belt a notch. The top buttons on her chemise were still undone. He unbuttoned another. Estelle wasn’t confused any more. She was going with them. She smiled. Tannzer smiled, too. Estelle put Amparo and her cradle inside her shirt, her little face poking out at her throat. The wineskin was wet and cool against Estelle’s skin. The cradle felt strong. Tannzer buttoned the chemise up and stood back to judge the result.

‘A baby’s tougher than you’d think. Just make sure she can breathe.’

‘I will.’

Estelle’s heart was pounding. She was going to fly.

‘Grégoire, give me the
sergent
’s belt.’

Grégoire unleashed his dog and Tannzer coiled the belt around Estelle’s chest, across her shoulder and under her armpit. It held Amparo more strongly. Tannzer manhandled Grymonde into position. He reversed the spear in Grymonde’s hand.

‘The blade’s grounded so watch your toes. If you fall, I will leave you.’

‘Fall? Give me another Immortal, man. And take one for yourself.’

Tannzer stood behind Estelle and picked her up under the armpits and hoisted her high. Her stomach dropped. She kicked her legs up and landed on Grymonde’s shoulders.

‘Don’t touch his face,’ said Tannzer. ‘Is Amparo set right?’

Estelle shifted the kidskin to ride on one thigh, and circled it with her arm.

‘She’s right.’

Estelle saw that a gang of the yard lads and girls had gathered.

‘We’ll come with you, chief!’

‘We’ll take the bloody palace if you ask us to!’

Tannzer turned his back to the gang and spoke to Grymonde.

‘Bold but sly is our game. They’ll only be meat for the butchers.’

Grymonde faced the gang and raised his arms.

Estelle looked down on them. She had never been so excited or so scared. Her legs gripped the huge neck. She sucked her forefinger, to make sure it was clean, and put it to Amparo’s lips. Amparo suckled the fingertip. Grymonde’s war voice rocked the Yards.

‘Children of Cockaigne. The time has come for me to bid you farewell.’

‘No!’ cried the lads and the lasses.

‘Yes. I am resolved to drown in the bath of blood I will spill from the veins of our enemies. Do not mourn me, but keep me alive in your hearts, for there I shall be. Always. Listen for the weeping of their women in the days to come. Listen for the tales that will be told of the Infant’s passing, for they will fill you with awe. And let that weeping and those tales be your warrant to rebuild the Land of Plenty. Will you do that for me?’

‘Aye!’

‘Will you give me your oath on it?’

A rowdy and heartfelt din filled the yard with promises.

‘No tomorrow!’ roared Grymonde.

Estelle watched Tannzer shoulder two bows and two quivers. He picked up a crossbow and walked away. The hare-lipped boy followed him. The hairless dog with the golden collar followed the boy. They were going to the river of blood.

Estelle and her sister, Amparo, were going, too.

And then they would all go home, together.

She pulled on Grymonde’s ears. He laughed. He was brain-cracked.

‘La Rossa, now you are my wings and eyes both.’

Estelle said, ‘Let’s fly.’

HE COULD MANAGE
without the eyes. In Paris after sundown, and in the Yards above all – and those hours had taken up a fair slice of his life – eyes weren’t much use anyway. Neither, given the stench, were nostrils, which was as well, for the only smell his own could detect was of his charred cavities. A sixth sense was what you needed in the Yards in the dark. His sixth sense had always been as sharp as a flesh fly’s, elsewise he’d have been dead long ago. Tonight it was blurred by pain. Not the pain of the wounds sustained in his fall from the roof. Those he couldn’t even feel. The burns. The pain of the burns had no focus: it shifted and warped from one instant to the next; it was never still; it was never one thing but many; it was never in one place but in many; it flickered and flared and whispered and blazed. It was everywhere, yet he couldn’t point to it, couldn’t draw a ring around it and set it aside, as he might have done with the hole in his leg. The fire pain surrounded his skull and everything in it, as if his head were sealed in a giant glass bottle filled with wasps. He could eat the pain as pain. Pain was life. But it galled him that he was more than merely blind. He needed another Immortal.

He needed to play his part.

His part, if nothing else, he could see, even through the pain. He pictured it in his mind. His mother’s draw came to him. No longer would he play the Hanged Man, a traitor to himself. No more would he play the pigeon plucked in the Juggler’s game. His part was now the Lunatic, his heels on the crumbling edge of the abyss; stranded at both the beginning and the end; knowing all and knowing nothing; with his staff and his rags and two pretty feathers in his hair. He did not need his senses. He needed only to be. And to walk on the paths that had heart.

His big feet were a boon. He pounded each one down as if to stamp holes through the earth, slow and steady, waiting to feel the earth protest before committing his weight and pounding onward again. He paired each pace of his left foot with a stab into the dirt of the spear he held in his right hand. It felt natural. He would not fall.

He carried on his shoulders, light as two wisps of fancy though they were – so light he could hardly feel their material weight – the two most precious spirits in Creation. One of them a Star to guide him; the other a Lunatic, too. A tiny Lunatic, she also teetering on the rim where end met beginning, knowing all worth knowing yet knowing nothing at all. Through the burning he felt the flutter of her brave new heart against the back of his head, while his own heart battered hugely into his ribs. How strange. How marvellous. To walk such paths as none had walked before. He felt a sharp tug on his right ear.

‘We’re turning south,’ said Estelle.

‘Into the jaws of the foeman. Good.’

Grymonde stopped and turned on the spot. He would not fall. He set forth again, stomping and stabbing the earth. The dirt underfoot was more even here and sloped slightly downwards. They were out of the Yards and walking parallel to Saint-Denis. He felt for Estelle’s ankle dangling on his chest and gave it a squeeze.

‘How are my darlings?’

‘There are bodies on the ground up ahead. Huguenots. Tannzer is dragging them aside for us. Grégoire! Lend Grymonde your shoulder while we pass.’

Grymonde felt her slap his left arm and he let go of her ankle and reached out. A hand took his, stronger than he might have guessed, and he placed his palm on a thin shoulder.

‘Thank you, lad.’

Grymonde stomped on. He held the spear vertical, out to one side, for fear of stabbing the boy. He detected a heat, a glow. It was faint, so he supposed, but his burns felt it and writhed.

‘Grégoire, is that a lantern you carry?’

‘Yes, sire.’

‘Sire?’ Grymonde felt a laugh bubble through him. ‘Be ye as wise as serpents. Tell me, lad, is it the virtuous man you seek with your lamp? Even on this Devil’s highway?’

Grégoire stopped. Grymonde almost knocked him down. He held him upright.

‘Tannhauser’sfightingupahead.’

The lad garbled through his nose. Grymonde heard a doleful cry.

‘Tannzer shot a man,’ said Estelle. ‘Now he’s running. He’s stabbed a second man.’

‘Guide me to his side.’

‘No. We are your eyes and wings. We’ll tell you when it’s time to breathe fire. Anyway, he’s killed all three.’

‘Three?’ Helplessness and envy scourged him.

‘They were robbing bodies. Tannzer’s dragging them. Now we can go on.’

‘Tannzer!’ called Grymonde. ‘Another Immortal, man. Or let me fight.’

‘Be quiet.’ Estelle slapped him on the head. ‘Do as you’re told.’

His feet splashed through pools of what must have been fresh blood. He ground his teeth. He hadn’t been the one to spill it. The clenching scalded his blisters. He blinked, but couldn’t, for he had no eyelids; a peculiar sensation. He started as Tannzer spoke close by. Even weighted with gear the man moved like a leopard.

‘A murder gang is emptying a house, half a furlong hence.’

‘Take these cherubs from my shoulders and let’s have at them.’

Fingers hard as oak clasped his arm. Grymonde wasn’t used to feeling comforted; the very notion was long lost to his memory; yet comforted he was.

‘Killing them’s no exploit, but there’s enough that some might run and raise the alarum. Les Halles is full of
sergents
. I propose to cross Saint-Denis. Is there a spot from which we can size up the Hôtel Le Tellier without being seen?’

Grymonde shoved at the agony clouding his thoughts, like a man pushing mist, and tried to picture the
hôtel
and its surroundings. He heard a stream of gibberish from the boy.

‘A stockyard, says Grégoire.’

‘He’s right. Back of Crucé’s abattoir.’ Grymonde saw it. ‘It should be empty until they open the city gate. A drover or two at most, who’ll go and get drunk for pennies.’

The hand let go and he missed it, and felt foolish. Estelle kicked his chest with both heels and he stumped on. He felt the oaken fingers again. They pressed a small, soft globe into his palm. He clenched his fist on an Immortal. He bridled at the suggestion he was less than stout.

‘I can get by without it.’

‘As you will, but you’re twitching like a madman’s puppet.’

‘I’ll not be addled for the fight?’

‘You’re addled with the pain. The pain and the opium will abate each other, like bitter and sweet. But you may have visions, so Estelle, you keep him sharp.’

Grymonde threw the Immortal down his gullet. His tongue turned as bitter as repentance but he liked it, because it was bitter, and because the prospect of visions was sweet.