The French Executioner (21 page)

‘We may have to change our opinion of what is and is not possible, Abraham. For it is two and a half weeks since this hand
was struck off, in the same instant as the head. If only we had that here as well, maybe we could ask her to explain herself.
As it is, we have to make do with what we possess.’

Cibo had started to speak slowly. He couldn’t stop staring at the hand. The light of the torches outside the chamber, filtered
through the glass, was making patterns and colours weave across it and it didn’t need to move to pull his eyes. The light
and heat seemed to be sucked into it and it took a huge effort for him to say, in a thick voice, ‘Put it away. Put it back
in the bag.’

Moving very slowly, Abraham did as he was told, and a weight and a shadow seemed to leave the room. They both breathed out.
Cibo’s knees gave, so he pulled up a stool and sat down heavily to stare into the haggard features opposite him.

I
look as old as you,
Cibo thought.
I can no longer shake off the hardships of travel with my former ease. And my illness …

The lack of a cough again made him strangely angry. All the more reason to proceed swiftly with their experiments, for it
was possible that rejuvenation and cure lay ahead.

‘Do you see what we have here?’ he said. ‘It could be the bridge we have been searching for, the link between the planes of
existence. How often have we tried to create a homunculus, a replica man, from the remains of another?’

The reply, as ever, was infuriatingly slow. ‘It was your desire to do that. I never thought it was necessary.’

‘You never dared to think it. You hesitated from reaching for the one thing that could lead us truly on. We both know life
and matter are inextricably linked. Well, I have seen the
miracle confirmed. This hand could pluck out the Philosopher’s Stone for us. It may be the key to freeing man from the shackles
of flesh, to the true transformation of spirit.’

Cibo could sit no more. He got up and began preparing the pipe for the opium, mixing the powdery lumps with a little liquid,
cramming the paste around the hole at one end of the thick, hollow, teak cylinder. When he was ready, he pulled Abraham gently
by the elbow and made him lie down on the cot, his head raised up on a blanket and turned to the side. He placed the mouth
of the pipe to Abraham’s and touched a taper to the side of the glowing crucible. It flared instantly. Holding the flame just
above the opium paste, Cibo continued in a soft voice.

‘Today we begin the quest that will lead to the last discovery worth making. Tell me what you need and it will be brought
to you. Dream it and it is yours. I will ransack the world for you.’

He lowered the flame. Abraham sucked, and Cibo pushed the lumpy liquid to the hole, watching it catch, transform to smoke
and disappear, watching it transform the concern on the Jew’s face to contentment. Five breaths he took, until the paste had
been burnt away. Then Abraham curled up, bony knees reaching up to bony chest.

It was when Cibo was halfway through his ascent of the dank stairwell that the pain seized him. He bent over, a great wrenching
cough seeming to take possession of his whole frame. Weakened, he leant against the dripping wall. Something was at his lips,
on his chin, and he reached a hand up to touch; they came away warm and sticky and he needed no flickering torchlight to tell
him what was there.

‘Hurry, Abraham,’ he murmured, wiping the blood away on his robes. ‘Hurry.’

But Abraham could not hurry. The opium that bound his will bound his intellect too. Experiments were conducted at a slower
pace. So it was two weeks later that Cibo, a daily
visitor to the only place where his coughing seemed to abate, finally lost all patience.

‘Enough!’ He rose above the Jew, who sat at the table, the hand laid out before him at the centre of the chart showing the
stars that had governed at Anne Boleyn’s execution. ‘Enough,’ he repeated. ‘We have tried your way. Now we will try mine.’

‘Three weeks we’ve been in Siena. And how many times have we seen him?’

It was a question Beck already knew the answer to, but the Fugger gave it anyway. ‘At least a dozen.’

They’d seen him going to officiate at the cathedral, borne in a litter up the few steps from his palazzo past the baptistry.
They’d sat in the Duomo and heard his sonorous voice declaim the Latin prayers. They’d watched him ride in his gilded carriage
the three hundred paces down the Via del Pellegrini through the Piazza del Campo to the town hall, the Palazzo Pubblico, where
the business of running Siena was conducted.

‘And how many chances have we had to get inside his palazzo?’ Beck queried.

The Fugger sighed. They’d have this conversation at least once a day. ‘Just the one.’

‘Exactly. One! And who stopped me taking it? You did.’

‘Our David would have got himself killed, would he not, Daemon?’ the Fugger said, feeding the raven bread from a huge round
of it in his lap.

Beck snorted. Yes, leaping on the back of Cibo’s carriage would have been a risk, but she was well used to those. What annoyed
her was that it wasn’t the risk that had stopped her. What stopped her was the mentioning of a name.

‘Let’s wait for Jean,’ the Fugger had said.

And the woman in her, the one she hid, suppressed, tied down as firmly as she tied down her breasts, had reacted to that name,
to those feelings so instantly evoked by a touch,
the memory of a laugh. A couple of days, mere hours really, and one fight at his side, ending in that final look as he saved
her life. Her head told her that no one came back from the galleys, that she would never see those eyes again, never be able
to confirm the promise or answer the question within them. Yet her heart hesitated at his name, and she missed the chance
her courage told her was there.

‘And that’s why I always work alone,’ she said, snatching some bread.

They were sat once more in front of the Palazzo Pubblico, having watched Cibo being delivered there again. They were on the
other side of the Campo with their backs to the fountain, the Fonte Gaia. The Fugger was enjoying the summer sun and the sound
of water gushing from the mouths of the stone wolves behind him. After his initial shock, he was even enjoying the other statues
on display, several of whom were women only partially clad. One was bare-breasted, an infant with questing fingers reaching
out to touch an elegantly carved nipple. He’d pretended a good Germanic outrage at the decadence, for they would never have
allowed such a sight back in Munster. But while Beck splashed some cooling water on an agitated brow, he looked again.

‘Beautiful, is she not?’

Beck had caught him staring. Anger banished, the teasing smile and fresh water transformed the face of the boy before the
Fugger. He shook his head, remembering his own watery transformation in the stream on the way to Tours, marvelling at this
change in his life, fearing that still, somehow, it was merely one of the dreams sent to torment him, visions of heaven as
he lay in the hell of the gibbet midden. Could he really be sitting beneath a lewd fountain in a decadent Italian town with
a bright, mad boy as a companion? With a purpose once more to his life? On the road to some sort of redemption for his sins?
The tentacles of the hell he’d escaped still reached out for him sometimes, in his dreams, occasionally when he was wide awake,
phantasms and ghouls and sword-wielding
barons bursting out of shadows to pursue him, to hew his body, to imprison him in filth. But somehow he’d retain his grip
on the world and the demons would shriek off into the sky. He still found it hard to look anyone in the eye, but more and
more he could talk to them directly. Even tease back.

‘Look at you,’ he said. ‘When you smile you look like a fresh-faced girl. Doesn’t he, Daemon?’

Beck scowled, turned away. But it was hard not to smile in Siena, for the town possessed a magic that even the occasional
evil of its rulers could not overpower, in its bells, its fountains and arcades.

The Fugger had turned back to watch the scurrying of people round the piazza. They emerged from the long shadow cast by the
giant tower, the Torre del Mangia, carrying all manner of objects: weapons, bolts of cloth, flagpoles, huge cured hams, butts
of wine. ‘Looks like they’re preparing for a party.’

‘They are. It’s the Palio.’

‘Ah yes, I heard the bread seller talking of it. It’s a race, yes?’

‘Everyone talks of nothing but the Palio, and it’s far more than a race.’ Beck smiled again and leant in. ‘It’s the heartbeat
of the city, a festival to celebrate some victory over the Florentines hundreds of years ago. The
contrade,
the local boroughs – there must be thirty of them – each has an emblem such as the eagle, the boar, the lion, the rooster
and the viper. They parade through the streets under banners and in the uniforms and colours of their band. And here in the
Campo, on the first night of the celebrations, two of the
contrade
have the honour of fighting each other. Fifty men a side in the
pugna,
as it’s called.’

‘Fighting? Are they gladiators? Have we returned to the bloodsports of ancient Rome?’

Beck smiled and held up a hand, with fingers bunched.

‘Almost. But these gladiators fight with fists wrapped in cloths. People get hurt, few die.’

‘Few?’ The Fugger rolled his eyes. ‘These Italians claim they are so civilised, that we Germans are the barbarians. Then they
punch each other to death in the street.’

‘Yes, Fugger, but more die in the bullfight.’

‘They have a bullfight as well? Is there no end to this Roman depravity, oh Daemon?’

The raven cocked its head at the mention of its name, stretched its huge wings, then went back to pulling at something wedged
between the street stones.

‘Oh yes, there is an end. It ends in the horse race. That starts and finishes here in the Campo, twists through the streets,
each
contrada
with its own horse. Then, of course, the real bacchanal begins, for winners and losers.’

‘And when does this pagan ritual commence?’

‘The second of July.’

‘That’s two days away. Will we get an invitation?’

‘Everyone’s invited. It’s the biggest party you’ll ever see. Everyone dresses up. You see that man carrying all that rich
cloth and silk? A Sienese would rather starve for a week than be underdressed on the big day. It’s a race, orgy, fight and
feast, all in one.’

‘What about these Italians, Daemon? What are a modest German and a good French raven to do?’

‘Join in, of course.’ Beck’s smile was back. ‘And if you can keep your head clear, there’s a lot of money to be made. Purses
dangle, men and women too drunk or too lost in the throes of lust to notice when they go missing.’

The Fugger feigned shock. ‘You are not suggesting a life of crime, young master?’

‘Not a life of it. A night will suffice. We are going to need more money if we are to …’ Beck broke off and stared at the
town hall opposite.

‘Are to what? Are you still not ready to tell Daemon and I why you need to get into Cibo’s palace so badly?’

‘It’s better that no one knows, not yet. Just know that my need is great,’ Beck sighed. ‘I have tried assault, I have tracked
that man throughout Europe in the hope of catching him unawares. Perhaps with the money we can make at the Palio I can bribe
my way into his palace. People always need more money at this time. Besides—’ She broke off again. ‘Fugger, are you listening
to me?’

He wasn’t. Fenrir, who had been dozing in the sunshine at their feet, now rose, a low growl in his throat. Someone had emerged
from the shadow of the tower. Someone all too familiar. ‘Von Solingen,’ he whispered. ‘Turn away. Hide your face. He has seen
you before.’

The Fugger need not have worried. Heinrich von Solingen had barely been able to focus in that street fight in Toulon, and
he was not completely recovered now from the stone Beck had hurled with such force at his head. It ached, and his vision was
still somewhat blurred, along with much of his memory. But his master required his recruiting skills, and his master had to
be obeyed. So it was that he accompanied Giovanni, the Archbishop’s manservant, whose silvery Italian tongue he was to back
up with his Germanic brawn. Between them, they had men to hire. Special men.

‘What’s happening here?’ said the Fugger as the little Italian set down the box he was carrying right in front of the fountain
not a dozen paces away then stood on it while two servants began to dispense wine from a cask, gathering an immediate crowd.
Von Solingen waited behind, arms folded. Giovanni began to speak.

‘Honoured citizens of Siena,’ he declared in a shrill voice that carried across the Campo, ‘Your benign, gracious and all-loving
Holiness the Archbishop – who, as you know, is a son of our fair city just like yourselves – the Archbishop wants to make
this Palio even more spectacular than any that has gone before.’ A small cheer greeted this statement. ‘To begin with, he
will reach into the heart of his magnificent wine cellar and produce barrels of nectar of which this is a mere taster.’ Another,
larger cheer came and more wine was dispensed. ‘But more than this, he is planning an event in this
very square as a prelude to the race, to dramatise that most glorious episode of our city’s history – the taking of the standard
bearer’s hand at Montaperti, which turned the tide of war against the Florentine foe and delivered us the victory we celebrate
at the Palio.’

A mixture of cheers and boos greeted the naming of the old and current enemy. The Florentines had besieged the town again,
not five years before.

Raising his voice above the tumult, Giovanni went on. ‘To achieve the right theatrical effect, and to show kindness to those
who strayed from God’s honest path once in their lives and paid such a heavy price, the Archbishop has requested that all
one-handed men, I say those who through accident or punishment have lost one hand and who want to earn honest coin for three
days and nights and partake of good food and wine even better than this – yes, let’s crack open another barrel now – and sleep
on feather beds right in the heart of the Holy Residence attended by the maidens of the Archbishop’s household’ – the largest
roar of all greeted this offer – ‘I say these lucky, handless men should immediately, or even sooner, present themselves to
me. Redemption awaits the sinner, comfort and luxury the reformed. And a chance to be at the centre of this spectacular retelling
of our heroic history.’