The French Executioner (44 page)

‘He who would withhold the very key to heaven?’ Jan Bockelson waved a hand towards the naked executioner. ‘I will devise brave
punishments. Bind him. Take him to my dungeons.’

Arms pinned, ropes cutting into his wrists, Jean was
dragged off through the jeering throng to a curtained doorway behind the throne. He had managed to glance up once and met
the eyes of Makepeace who shook his head in despair. But the last face he saw in the room was the Fugger’s, who had come forward
and was weeping as Jean was bundled past him.

‘Forgive me,’ he was saying through tears, ‘please, please, forgive me.’

Jean’s tongue could form no words for his mouth was filled with his own blood, his throat choked once again with despair.
But it was not the blows of the guards to his body nor the ropes’ cruel binding at the wrist that hurt him now. It was his
left cheek where the pain was greatest, for it was there that a man he called his friend had placed a Judas kiss.

‘Is it surrender?’ Haakon peered at the main gates where the first of the townsfolk were beginning to emerge.

‘I think not. Look at who’s coming out.’ Januc climbed down from the gunpowder keg he’d been standing on. ‘Let us go and get
a better look.’

The third morning since Jean and the Fugger had entered the city had dawned cold, the grass lightly frosted, summer just beginning
its slow fade into a memory of warmth. They had alternated the watch, shivering and in vain, all night before the tower but
there had been no signal from their companions within.

‘Perhaps they will be among these?’ Haakon knew the hope was false as he said it.

‘The old, the young, and the women. This siege is nearly over.’

The scarecrows who straggled from the gates were empty-handed, bones thrust out from barely clinging rags. They limped into
a gauntlet of jeering mercenaries who vented their frustrations at the hardship of the siege on their skeletal bodies.

Turning away in disgust, leaving the Norwegian to scan the crowd in faint hope, Januc watched a large party of mounted men
ride into the camp, preceding and following an elaborately carved and decorated carriage.
Reinforcements,
Januc thought, until something about the carriage, the way
the body of it sat on leather straps, stirred his memory. He looked again at the head of the column where a huge man was studying
the crowd before him, seeking a passage through to the banners of Munster and Hesse. The man turned back and called an order,
and Januc was able to get a look at his face. It was a wreck, a deathmask on a walking corpse, and he had seen it once before,
and briefly in a street fight in Siena.

The janissary turned and pulled Haakon swiftly away to crouch behind a pile of fascines stacked ready to reinforce the nearby
earthworks. The horsemen and carriage passed within a few paces of them.

‘And what, in the name of all our unlucky stars, has drawn that devil to this place?’ asked Haakon.

He had glanced over the fascines as the carriage went by, had seen the face that peered out of the window. He had last seen
it beside a well in a town ablaze with St Anthony’s Fire, and he had hoped never to see it again.

Giancarlo Cibo was sure he had had a reason for this journey when setting out. But everything after Marsheim had become a
blur of blood and confusion. Firm decisions dissolved in doubt, accompanied by a constant red disgorging through his lips.
He found it hard to concentrate, to give directions. For the first time ever in his life, he allowed another to take control.

A spasm seized him, a handkerchief raised too late. Drops falling to join the stain that had spread across the chest of his
travelling cloak. Cibo threw himself back against the padded seats of his carriage and dabbed, yet again, at his mouth. Beside
him, Franchetto stirred and muttered.
The man would sleep in his armour at the battle’s crest,
the Archbishop thought. But at least sleep dulled his brother’s pain, for his personal legacy from Marsheim was to be bent
almost double, his bones locked, every muscle strained. A gradual uncurling had taken place during the journey to Munster,
accompanied by an agony of burning in every one of his limbs, but he had some way to go before he could stand straight. When
he walked, he looked like a crow prowling for scraps. Only when he slept was there some respite from his constant moans.

And his brother had been one of the luckier ones. They both had. A dozen of his men had died at each other’s, or their own,
hands. Died screaming, beset by demons, different for all yet the same in the richness of their horror. A sword plunged repeatedly
into a chest might have been the actual reason for his departure from life, but no one who saw this leave-taking could miss
the pitchfork that ripped the man’s soul from the flesh that housed it. All had been left with some impairment in body or
mind. Another half a dozen men had deserted that first night to crawl back to their homes. Those that remained were a bent
and twisted lot, clinging together in fear. The one man who appeared unchanged was the man leading the column now.

Cibo knew differently, for he saw that Heinrich von Solingen had taken embers from St Anthony’s Fire and placed them behind
his eyes. He had gained a mind to match the wreckage of his face.

It was Heinrich who had organised them after the worst of the nightmares had faded, who had led the search for the hand and
convinced his master that the executioner’s appearance and the taking of the hand was more than hallucination – a deduction
the Abbot had confirmed, just before Heinrich killed both him and his young confessor. The pretence of holy crusade that had
brought the Cibos to Germany had to be maintained. The crucifixion of a fellow prelate, if it got out, was unlikely to help
in that.

Cibo appreciated the discretion of his bodyguard. This pretence had brought the party to Munster, for the Papal emissary,
Petro Paolo Vergerio, had been embarrassed by their unexpected arrival in Frankfurt and had urged them on. The situation was
delicate, he had explained, with the
Emperor and Pope trying to convene a general council at Mantua that all sides, Catholic and Protestant, would attend. He did
not want the eminent Archbishop upsetting any of the waverers.

‘Why not go to Munster, where Catholic and Protestant are united against the peasant Anabaptists?’ he had said. ‘It is a sign
that we may resolve our differences. Offer your “crusading” skills there.’

Cibo had heard the tone in those words, had made a promise to himself that one day he would delight in humbling the pompous
fool. But he had nowhere else to go while his spies criss-crossed the German states in the hope of hearing news of the hand.
Some Bavarian hedge knights of Heinrich’s acquaintance had questioned a party matching the description of their quarry near
the borders of their state. Some scowling Lutheran apprentices had admitted the same across those borders. Then … nothing.
They had disappeared. So Munster seemed as good a place as any to wait for further news. He could be seen to pursue the Holy
Church’s cause while he pursued his own.

Now, his coughing subsided, Cibo was drawn forward by the sound of cheering. Seeing that they were only a few hundred paces
from the banners of fellow noblemen, he called Heinrich to a halt.

‘I must change into my holy robes before I greet those I have come to aid.’

‘And your brother?’

Cibo glanced across at the still muttering Franchetto.

‘Leave him where he is. We will have enough explaining to do. Go and announce me.’

In clean vestments, and with an honour guard of the dozen soldiers who could still walk upright, the Archbishop was led to
the pavilion of the Bishop of Munster. He expected more formality in his entrance, the usual rituals of greeting between princes
of Church and state. But the Bishop’s small tent was crowded and the Bishop himself too excited to remember the
courtesies. Cibo had met him a few times, at the conferences that had punctuated the early years of the Lutheran schism. He
was excitable, and common, overly familiar, as so many of the Germans were, and time had not changed that. It had merely added
several jowls to a face that had never lacked excess flesh.

‘Ah, dear fellow, so good of you to come,’ Munster said, as if the Italian were there for supper. ‘I am sorry that we cannot
receive you with more pomp, but your arrival coincides with a great day. The first signs that the enemy is about to break.
They have sent out their women and children for lack of food. Soon, soon, I will have my city back. Have you met the Landgrave?’

A tall man, dressed in full armour, a helm clutched under his arm, a staff of office in his hand, looked up from a map in
annoyance at the Bishop’s interruption. Philip of Hesse’s grey beard spilled over his gorget, and matching grey eyes stared
out from a weather-lined face. He made no effort to bow and kiss Cibo’s ring, merely nodded stiffly, muttered something in
German and returned to hearing reports from the soldiers around him.

‘Not one of us, I’m afraid,’ the Bishop whispered, his greasy face uncomfortably close to Cibo’s, exhaling an odour of stale
cabbage. ‘Ah well, a new world. And he will help deliver my city to me again.’

Cibo endured a seemingly endless diatribe against the Anabaptists until a disturbance at the flap of the tent interrupted
the Bishop and a soldier bearing his colours rushed up to whisper in his ear, handing him a small scroll of paper. Munster
read it, clapped his hands together and called once more to the Landgrave.

‘My dear Prince, we must clear the tent. Only our most trusted officers must stay. I have news from within the city. News
that will deliver it to us perhaps!’

Philip scowled at this loud demand for secrecy but gestures to various officers ensured the Bishop’s desires were swiftly
obeyed. His meaningful look at Cibo brought the Bishop to his fellow Catholic’s defence.

‘He is here, with fresh men, to help us. He wants our enemies laid low as we do. He must stay.’

With ill grace, the Landgrave nodded briefly, then again to his guard at the tent’s entrance.

A flap was thrown back and two Fuggers, Gerta and Alice, were ushered in.

Januc had asked the Norseman, ‘How good are you at skulking?’

‘I never skulk,’ had been the proud reply.

So he’d said, ‘That’s what I thought. Which is exactly why I go alone. For whatever is happening within that tent, we must
hear it.’

Thus Januc found himself wedged between two wine casks under the eaves of the Bishop of Munster’s pavilion. Rain gushed off
its sloped canvas roof and sought out every crack of his clothing. Yet he was grateful, for the downpour meant that the guards,
who might have patrolled round the tent, were now huddled into whatever shelter they could find nearby. Though he was well
concealed, observant eyes might still have discovered him. The rain made listening hard, but fortunately agitated people always
speak loudly.

‘I know this woman,’ the Bishop said. ‘She is the wife of Cornelius Fugger, a generous benefactor of the Church in Munster.
He is a member of the great banking family. I’m sure you all know them?’

The Landgrave, like every German prince, did indeed know them; nearly all were severely indebted to the family. Nearly all
hated them for that reason.

‘A Catholic and a Fugger? I thought they were all Jews.’ Philip of Hesse’s insult drew a sycophantic laugh from the half dozen
of his commanders who stood around him. ‘The Emperor made a gross error in allowing Christians to practise
usury. Does this Fugger want to sell us his city? We will take it for free, woman. And we will do it for him with “interest”
added.’

There was more laughter, but if Gerta was scared of her august listeners, she was more terrified of her husband’s eventual
wrath should she fail in her mission. That terror made her bold enough to speak.

‘My Lords, the Bishop here knows my husband to be a good son of Munster. And he would see his city saved from the evil that
has consumed it.’

‘As it will be soon. The city is within days of falling,’ said the Landgrave.

‘My Lord, would that were true.’

‘It is true. You women coming out proves it. You have no more food in there.’

Gerta’s voice quavered. ‘My husband fears that, food or not, there will not remain a city for you to relieve. King Jan dreams
of the final apocalypse, of Armageddon. That here and now the prophecies will be fulfilled.’

The Bishop snorted. ‘The fantasies of a madman!’ He turned to Philip. ‘You see what happened when your Luther translated the
Bible into German? Lunatics chose to interpret God’s word directly.’

Before the Landgrave could counter the argument, the woman’s restraint broke and a wail burst from her.

‘But he is a lunatic who will burn my home rather than surrender! All our homes! And he has just been given the weapon he
needs to hasten the flames!’

‘What weapon?’ Philip snapped at her. ‘No weapons have entered the city.’

‘He thinks it is a sign from the Saviour himself.’

‘A sign? What babbling is this? More Anabaptist nonsense?’ The Bishop’s patience had reached its limits.

Gerta continued through her tears. ‘A man was captured in the city yesterday. A Frenchman who had snuck over the walls with
… with someone else. Concealed on him was this
weapon. Their deliverance, they are all saying. It is … it is a severed hand.’ The tears overcame her.

‘A hand, you stupid woman?’ Philip of Hesse could pretend politeness no longer. ‘What use is a hand from some criminal’s corpse?’

‘They are saying it belonged to that English queen they executed in the spring. Anne … something. The hand, it …
it …’

‘It has six fingers. It is a witch’s hand. The Devil’s work, for it does not rot nor wither!’ Alice finished her mother’s
news in a burst.

Giancarlo Cibo had been standing quietly to the side, his mind separated from the conversation around him, coughing blood
quietly into a handkerchief. When these last words reached him, he thought he was hearing them in another time, when the news
first came to him in Siena that Anne was to be executed. Ever since Marsheim time had been strangely dislocated, the past
forever pushing into the present. But when Heinrich beside him stiffened and actually dared to grasp the Archbishop’s arm,
he realised the words had been spoken here and now and God or the Devil had guided him to this place. He didn’t much care
which.