The French Executioner (10 page)

Jean moved across to the figure opposite him. ‘They will burn instead. He asks us to prevent that.’

‘That is different then,’ Haakon grunted, immediately kneeling to ask the weeping lad’s forgiveness. On the other side, Jean
did the same.

‘I bless you for your kindness, Monsieur. And God will bless you for it as well.’

There was no ceremony to it. The crowd were distracted by their arguments, and while Marcel whined about betrayal an axe and
a sword rose and fell and two heads rolled on the ground.

At being thus cheated, the mob’s disapproval threatened to turn violent, discarded melon husks already flying towards the
dais where Marcel had failed to provide the show some of them had paid for, and all desired.

The Fugger knew a distraction was necessary before spectacle was abandoned in favour of riot. For Jean had to win the prize,
had to be on the scaffold tonight beside the man who’d condemned him to his slow death, had to take back what was stolen.
So he pushed his way to the front, climbed up and grabbed the melon-dodging Marcel.

‘Monsieur, the final test!’

‘There is no other,’ Marcel said, wiping pulp from his lace.
‘I had thought to get the mob to choose between their headstrokes, but now—’

‘I have a test for them. They are matched in efficiency. Try them for speed.’

‘Speed?’ said Marcel disdainfully. ‘How can we test their speed?’

‘Look!’ The Fugger pointed into the chicken pens behind them. ‘Fifty each. First man to finish, wins.’

It was a straw, and Marcel grasped it. Jacques, who had just punched the drunkest of the protesters, had a moment to shout
the proposition. Loud laughter greeted it and the mob swayed behind the idea. The action would be fast, furious and faintly
ridiculous and it was something in which they all could share. They were chicken killers to a man.

Details were quickly arranged. The two executioners would stand in separate pens whose fences would prevent the chickens fleeing
their fate. Each could have two assistants to chase, catch and place on the block; as Jean did not use one he was free to
move as he chose, and he put his assistant, the Fugger, atop the fence to keep him informed as to his rival’s count. Each
bird had to be severed at the neck, with only five mistakes allowed.

In the frenzy of betting that followed the Fugger, who had doubled his money on an evens bet on the prisoners, now placed
his twenty sous at two to one with a man who believed utterly in the axe and block – as most people did.

Crowding round the extremity of the pens, climbing on every elevated part of the abattoir, the crowd cheered each group of
chickens thrown in, like gladiators entering some ancient arena. Haakon stood at his block, massive, calm, certain. If the
two boys he’d selected did their job in supplying him with chickens – helped by a now agitated Fenrir, snapping at the frightened
birds – he felt certain the prize would be his. Only when he looked across at his opponent standing calmly, legs apart and
sword resting on his shoulder, did he have a moment’s doubt.

A handkerchief fluttered, a roar split the sky, and the two men began executing chickens. With a one-handed, shortened grip,
Haakon grabbed, placed, steadied, chopped and discarded. The boys, awed by the huge Norseman and desirous of a twin for the
coin already in their breeches, kept his block awash with birds. Fenrir, snapping and snarling, drove the fowl into their
arms.

When the handkerchief dropped, Jean brought his sword down from his shoulders, removing in the stroke the heads of two startled
birds. Changing the angle and swivelling on his right foot he brought his left around and swept sideways, his blade making
a T with the ground, adding another three heads to the dust. Untwisting his wrists, he brought the blade up and over while
lunging, catching a chicken that had realised, too late, the place it occupied was not a healthy one. Bringing his right foot
over he swivelled on his left, scything parallel to the ground, taking two that tried to escape and one that threw itself
forward onto the blade.

His enemies were much smaller, but it was not unlike the tactics he would use in a mêlée. His size, his ability to move swiftly
and low, had always been an advantage and was doubly so here. As in battle, he blocked from his mind all the extra sounds
– here, the cheering, the maniacal laughter, the frantic clucking, the disturbingly rhythmic and speedy thud of axe on block
– and focused on opponents who duly sought to avoid him and whom he hunted down and despatched as ruthlessly as he had any
enemy.

The problem with his method came with the tendency of headless chickens to still run around. He often held up strokes to avoid
splitting one of these, but there were the inevitable mistakes. He’d used up four of his five by the time he had only three
chickens left.

It was then he became aware of the Fugger on the fence. He was frantically signalling the score from the other pen. His one
hand was raised, and two fingers were down on it.

Time slowed then for Jean, as it had on Tower Green, as it
always did in such moments. He took in the thumb and two fingers raised, the two remaining chickens with heads in one corner,
the last one behind him in the diagonally opposite one. It was like the game they often played in the army camps, throwing
heavy wooden discs at pins set up in formation. With them split like that, two and one, what was his choice? He needed all
three.

Another of the Fugger’s fingers dropped. Jean felt he was moving ever slower, but to the onlookers he became a blur of man
and metal as he hurled himself to the two, took the first with a downward swipe and the second with that valuable back edge.
Only the Fugger’s thumb remained upright. Jean saw the axe rising up over the top of the fence and then, miraculously, pause.
Haakon’s last chicken had slipped temporarily through bloodied fingers, and it took a moment to jerk it back into position.

That moment was enough. In that half second, though his bruised ribs protested Jean used his back and outstretched leg and
the weight of the sword moving forward to spin around, complete a half circle with the blade, uncurl his bunched shoulder
muscles and send the sword spinning across the compound to the other corner where the last chicken obliged him by craning
up to look at this possible source of flying food. It caught, but did not hold the sword halfway down its neck.

Haakon’s axe had just begun its descent when the crowd screamed at Jean’s throw. The axe bit into the wood a hair above the
mottled flesh and, knowing it was too late to remove and strike again, Haakon glanced back over the fence in time to see Jean’s
sword end its journey. The Frenchman was sprawled in the feathers and the blood, and it was then that the Norseman realised
he’d seen this man before. There had been blood then too, and pain. But neither had come from chickens.

When the Fugger had collected his winnings, he fetched water
to the hut where Jean had taken refuge from the congratulations of the mob. There Jean cleaned himself, sipping the wine he’d
been given by all his new friends.

‘I knew, I knew, I knew you could do it!’ The Fugger danced before him. ‘Such a flashing, slashing, blinding victory!’ He
moved around the hut, imitating some of Jean’s cuts and thrust. ‘I bet that hulking brute …’ he started, then stopped, for
his lunging hand had encountered something hard that had stepped between him and the sunlight.

‘You were saying?’ The Norseman was there, making the doorway look small.

‘Nothing,’ said the Fugger, ‘nothing at all. Now where is that Daemon? Excuse me – such a nice … ooh, uh, dog is it, yes?
Daemon! Come away from those chickens!’

The Fugger scrambled out of the hut, leaving the two unmasked headsmen to regard each other for a long and silent moment.

‘Wine?’ Jean offered a flask.

The Norwegian took it and drank, his eyes never leaving Jean’s, then handed it back with the words, ‘I know you.’

‘Indeed?’

‘Not your name. But we have met before.’

‘Indeed?’ Jean said again. ‘When?’

‘In twenty-five. I was with Frundsberg at Pavia.’

‘And I was with King Francis.’

‘Mercenary?’

‘Not then. For King and country then. But I took my first step along the mercenary road there. It was where Frundsberg recruited
me.’

‘I remember.’ The Norseman paused, then added softly, ‘The Landsknecht whose place and sword you took. His name was Tomas.
He was a friend of mine.’

‘Of course,’ said Jean. ‘You were the man with the musket.’

‘Yes. I was the man with the musket.’

For just a moment, both their minds returned to that day.
France’s army had been annihilated on the plains outside Milan and in the ensuing rout Jean had been cornered by a squadron
of the enemy. Their executioner had come for an unarmed Jean, who had taken the man’s sword from him and killed him with it.
It was the first time he’d ever held one of the square-headed weapons, and he could still remember the shock of it, as if
it had been born somehow to his hand but had been taken away at birth. While marvelling at what felt like a reunion, Jean
had suddenly realised someone was preparing to shoot him, so he’d flung the sword at the assailant from twenty paces. Being
unused to the weapon then, it was the pommel not the blade that hit the man with the musket, whose bullet had then gone through
Jean’s cap.

The same man, it seemed, who stood before him now.

‘That blow changed my life,’ Haakon continued. ‘I was unconscious for a day and a night. Some Swiss found me and took me to
fight in Flanders.’

Jean smiled. ‘And, as you say, I took the place of the man I’d killed. Frundsberg sent us to Hungary to fight the Turk.’

Haakon smiled also. ‘I always hoped I’d meet you again.’

‘Indeed,’ said Jean for the third time, and reached for his sword.

The giant did not move.

‘Have no fear.’

‘I am not afraid,’ replied the Frenchman.

‘Good. For I do not seek revenge. I used up my share of that many years ago.’

‘Then what do you seek?’ Jean’s hands were still light upon the sword’s guard.

‘I seek … a way out. I thought the execution was that way, but I misread the signs. They spoke of a man who would change my
direction. They spoke of you.’

‘I do not know what you mean. For I am not a leader.’

‘The one-handed one follows you.’

‘Well.’ Jean looked out into the stockyard, where the
Fugger could be seen trying to prise a carcass away from a determined Daemon. ‘I rescued him from something.’

The big man smiled, sadly. ‘Then rescue me.’

Jean looked at this man’s open face, the cascading flow of golden hair and beard, eyes the blue-green of one of his native
streams. It was a face without guile.

‘What is your name?’

‘Haakon Haakonsson.’

‘Well, Haakon, listen. I am … on a quest. I have made a vow, and my loyalty is only to that. But it may be a short one and
could well kill me, even as soon as tonight.’

The Norwegian thought for a moment.

‘I like the sound of a quest,’ he rumbled. ‘Quests make for good stories. Is there a hoard of gold at the end of it?’

‘Probably not.’

‘A woman?’

‘A … woman, yes. The vow was sworn to her.’

‘Better and better. And a fight to be had, did you say?’

‘I didn’t. But there will be a fight, for sure. Perhaps many, perhaps just one, tonight.’

‘Then I am indeed your man.’ Haakon lowered himself onto the bench beside the Frenchman. ‘I would ask just one thing, the
only favour I will ever ask of you. In return for it, I will offer you my loyalty, total and complete.’

‘And that is?’

Haakon smiled. ‘When I have proved myself worthy, you will tell me the tale of this lady and this vow.’

Jean scratched his head. For a man who always worked alone he somehow was attracting followers at every stage of this journey.
And both seemed bereft in some way. Well, that made three of them, he supposed. A quest for the lost.

Then it occurred to him that maybe their coming wasn’t to do with him at all. Maybe it was to do with Anne Boleyn.

‘Well,’ he shook his head, ‘we can discuss this over some food. Would you like to eat?’

‘Yes,’ said Haakon, ‘I would. Just as long as it’s not chicken.’

Both men laughed. It felt good after such an afternoon, so they kept doing it for a while.

When Jean met his client two hours later, he found a man unprepared to die. But not for the usual reasons.

‘Ah yes, the executioner.’ The Count de Chinon barely glanced at Jean, instead gesturing to the man who sat opposite him.
‘The Count de Valmais plays a particularly vicious game of royales. You must excuse me while I watch him like a hawk. You
see?’ He’d laid down a card which was snatched up in triumph by his equally youthful opponent.

Jean studied de Chinon. Scarcely eighteen, an attempt at a beard around chin and upper lip made him look even younger, while
his black hair was longer than the close-cropped regal style of King Francis’ court, probably due to its thickness and sheen.
The azure bonnet was jewelled, the ostrich feather that circled it ending in a golden nib. His clothes were dazzling, in the
Swiss mercenaries’ style so eagerly appropriated by the aristocracy: the striped vest embroidered with gold, alternating white
satin and black, the sleeves matching, hugely puffed, white taffeta pulled through the slashes. The sleeveless overvest of
vivid crimson was held only at the waist, opening wide at the chest, giving the desired effect of broadness. His legs were
crossed, their hose a riot of contrasting shapes and colours. Thankfully, the youth’s surcoat of turquoise blue silk was lying
on the table at the side, for the addition would have been overpowering.

Studying this latest client who ignored him in favour of his
friend, Jean thought,
There is nothing of the religious fanatic in his manner, no glow of the soon-to-be martyred. His heresy probably has more
to do with the romance rebellion holds for the young.