The French Executioner

by C. C. Humphreys

  Seventy yards, and John Hood, late of King Henry’s navy, latterly in the service of the Moor, came up from behind the gunwale to sight along his weapon, Mad Meg, named after a harridan wife long since abandoned in Dover. Hakim knew the value of the man, had stopped to collect him and his favourite gun from the crippled ship, and Hood knew why. He was responsible for snagging their prize with that wonderful shot to their mast. Now, if he could just rake the foredeck, kill most of the soldiers and especially that dancing fool of a captain … He raised the glowing taper above the hole.

  Sixty paces, no more, and, ignoring the shower of arrows beginning to fall like hail onto the deck, shutting out the cries of stricken men, Januc pulled the bow back to full stretch. He had not felt the latent power within one for two years, but his muscles locked in the familiar way, his breathing slowed and he took his sighting. He saw the gunner’s hand make a final adjustment, saw the head just up above the gun’s end, even saw the gleam in an eye that reflected a burning taper. He sighted on that gleam, breathed out, leaving just a little air, and released the arrow.

  John Hood was lowering the match when something punched him in the face. He had no time to wonder what as he was dead before he reached the deck.

  The arrows had become a dense cloud, and Januc ducked down behind the wooden palisade of the foredeck. Above him, projectiles pinging off the angled plates of his armour, the captain raised his sword in a swift salute.

  ‘Keep it,’ he said when Januc offered up the bow, ‘but I’ll want it back later.’

  And then, in a scream of twisting, snapping wood that seemed as human as any of the screams of the wounded and the dying on both decks, the two ships smashed together.

  Jean and Haakon had done as they were told and lay in the muck and filth under the bench. The war cries, ululation of tongue and throat, did not draw them out, and they heard a dozen arrows thump into the wood above them, one of them lodging itself an inch from Haakon’s nose on the deck. Then a volley of bullets crashed above them as forty arquebusiers – half the Perseus’s complement of soldiers – fired at the first rank of turbaned, scimitar-waving pirates who came pouring over the side of the bigger ship. Many were hit, bodies plunging down to land on bench and deck. Many were unharmed and naked feet pounded along the benches above them.

  When Haakon went for his axe, Jean yelled, ‘The second volley! Remember what Januc said!’

  So they waited, and in an instant there came another crash of gunpowder, more cries of pain and terror, and a flailing body fell beside the huddled Norwegian. His huge hands reached out to drown the struggling pirate in the mire.

  ‘Now!’ said Jean, and he and Haakon rolled out from beneath their bench to see the third wave of the enemy, unhampered by the soldiers struggling to reload, sweep down upon the deck. There was no time to calculate odds, to fear or to take stock. Now was the time for the battle mist to descend, as red as the blood that sprayed all around them.

  A turbaned figure in white ran at him, shrieking, a spear held high, aimed at his chest. Jean side-stepped just in time, the point buried itself in the gunwale behind him and, swinging the sword level with the spear shaft, he took the man’s head off, seeing the startled look on the face as it bounced onto the deck. Jerking the spear out, spinning it up in the air to reverse his grip on it, he hurled it a dozen paces to impale the man who had got behind and under Haakon’s whirling axe, whose scimitar was poised for the death blow. Haakon noted the kindness with the eyes in the back of his head but had no time to acknowledge it, for three more of the enemy, one with a spear and two with swords, were upon him and Jean was unable to decrease those odds further, having three screaming opponents of his own.

  Jean leapt up onto the gangway. Driving forward, his blade circling, he feinted high, caught the man on the left under his raised guard, slicing him across the chest, then took both the other blades in a square parry as they descended towards his head and, flicking his wrists in a tight circle, sent the scimitars flying out of their hands. One man leapt in fear onto the benches while the other reached for and whipped out another scimitar strapped to his back. Jean drove at him and he retreated, skilfully parrying Jean’s assault, until he smashed up against the hanging body of Ake. The huge black man’s blood had made that part of the deck slick, and when his opponent’s foot went from under him Jean lunged full length and hit the man in the chest with the flat tip of his sword. It was the one disadvantage of the weapon, that it could not deliver a kill with its point, but the blow was enough to knock the man on his back and Jean, bringing his rear leg up, sharply lunged again with a downward cut, impaling his opponent on the deck.

  His efforts had carried him to the steps of the aftdeck, and for a brief moment he found not an enemy before him. It was one of those curiously calm moments that always occurred in battle, or at the exact moment in an execution when the sword struck. The noise of it all faded, cries and deathblows were snatched away, the red mist pulled aside like a veil by some unseen hand. Such moments of clarity had saved his life more than once and it was to save a life now, because within the calm he heard a small voice beside him. He turned and looked at its source.

  Not a hand’s breadth from his own face was another, a huge black one, covered in sweat, contorted by pain, upside down. Brown eyes stared into his while a voice spoke words he could not understand, yet when accompanied by a look towards his sword told their meaning perfectly.

  Ake was beseeching him for a swift and merciful death.

  In the silence that still held him, Jean seemed to move so very slowly up to the hanging man’s feet, as he slowly slashed the cords there. Taking the weight, he lowered Ake gently down to the gangway, placing his back against the base of the aftdeck. He then reached for the fallen enemy’s scimitar and laid it in Ake’s huge black hands, saying, ‘Later is always a better time to die.’

  The silence was suddenly swept away by a body knocking him backwards, covering him. He tasted blood, thought it unfamiliar, and struggled up from under the dead limbs to see Haakon, stark naked, awash with gore, laughing like a maniac above him.

  ‘That’s one for one,’ he cried, ‘for that dog was about to stick a spear up your arse. I wager I save you more than you save me. Loser buys the first butt of wine!’

  And with that, whirling his axe through the air, he ran back into the thickest part of the fray.

  Despite the returning roar of battle, Jean was still able to hear his name being called. He ran, dodging, halfway down the gangway. Januc was there.

  ‘Can you get that Viking back here? I have a plan.’

  The Frenchman laughed because the Croatian was so calm, despite an arrow branching out, rather obviously, from his shoulder. It didn’t seem to be affecting his mind though.

  ‘I’ll fetch him.’

  ‘Come to the foredeck,’ Januc said. Pausing only to snap the arrow shaft near the head, he disappeared from view.

  Being above the main deck had allowed him to get a better view of things. He hadn’t been involved in as much fighting owing to the number of the Perseus’s soldiers up there with him, but he had been in enough sea fights to know which way this one was going. The Black Crescent galley, which Ganton had dismasted, had now righted itself, cleared its wrecked sails from the main deck and was even now circling around the combatants to join the fray on the Perseus’s other side. Once that manoeuvre was completed, the superior numbers would mean a speedy end to the fight. And a certain and painful death for Januc, once Hakim saw him.

  Big Nose was thinking along much the same tack. They had absorbed the early attacks and his soldiers were fighting better than he might have expected under Augustin’s nervous command, but he too was aware of the reinforcements shortly to join his enemy, and the consequences of that.

  As he was thinking, that damned bowman appeared at his side.

  ‘Captain?’

  ‘You again. What now? Have you another target for my bow?’

  ‘A target, yes. But I think we need
more than a well-placed arrow. I was at Tunis—’

  De la Vallerie looked down his large nose at the man. ‘What of it? So was I.’

  It was not the time to exchange stories, though a French captain fighting for Spain was an oddity, Januc thought. More so even than a Croatian fighting for the Turk.

  The captain seemed to sense the question. ‘A man may serve many masters in his life for many reasons. As I’m sure you know.’

  ‘True, my Captain. Now I only serve my own skin. And it will not be preserved if we lose this fight.’

  Three more arrows glanced off de la Vallerie’s armour, causing Januc to duck. The captain swatted at them irritably.

  ‘I suggest you make your point, we are about to have more company. What about Tunis?’

  ‘Barbarossa’s escape.’

  ‘Ah yes. Driving at the heart of the enemy. You would have me and my soldiers do that? With you left on my ship, no doubt.’

  ‘With me and two other fighters beside you. These two,’ Januc said as Jean and Haakon hurled themselves over the guard rail of the foredeck. The Norwegian had taken a small cut to the forearm and Jean was nicked in the thigh, but behind them five bodies lay silent on the gangway.

  ‘Ah, my most recent purchases.’

  De La Vallerie peered at the two men, clutching their strange weapons, then looked up to see the progress of the other galley. They had maybe five minutes. Five minutes for a miracle to happen. For him to make it happen.

  ‘Augustin,’ he called to his harried subordinate. ‘First company to withdraw, load and fire on my command only. Second company, hand weapons.’

  The main deck, now that Jean and Haakon had left it, had rapidly been taken over by the pirates. The only two points of resistance were the fore and aft raised decks. Ganton was back there with the third company of soldiers, about twenty in all, throwing off assaults, losing men in each one. He could not last long.

  With his orders obeyed, the companies prepared, de la Vallerie thought about a speech but realised there wasn’t time. With a brisk ‘Forward the second company!’ he hurled himself at the nets that had been dropped over the side of the Arab vessel to board the Perseus. Arrows bounced and pinged off him, but several of his soldiers, less protected, were less fortunate. When he was halfway up, he yelled, ‘Now, Augustin!’ and a ragged volley swept the railings momentarily clear of the enemy. De la Vallerie, with Jean, Haakon, Januc and the fifteen survivors of the first company, burst over the side of the Silver Serpent.

  The force of the larger ship’s assault had carried it halfway down the Perseus’s length before they’d managed to grapple her. This meant the counter attack arrived near the aftdeck of the enemy, close to where Hakim was now positioned, urging his men forward.

  ‘Most of them are on our ship!’ Januc yelled. ‘At them!’ And with the janissary cry of ‘Allah is great!’ – startling to many of the enemy, who were yelling the same thing – he rushed, scimitar swirling, toward the aftdeck and the man in black screaming orders and waving his own scimitar under his serpent banner.

  ‘For France!’ cried de la Vallerie, a cry echoed by his men, his sword thrusting at his enemy.

  ‘Hoch, Hoch!’ Jean and Haakon let out the mercenaries’ war cry, terror of the battlefields of Europe.

  Though they were outnumbered, the suddenness of their appearance, the ferocity of their attack and the soldiers’ heavier armour caused momentary panic in the pirate ranks. They scattered before them, and the assault carried them right to the steps of the raised deck that was their target.

  A huge Arab in breastplate, helm and shield held the stairs. Two of the company were brushed away before de la Vallerie lunged up at him; but the man pushed his sword aside with his scimitar and used the flat of the blade to deal the captain’s helmet a huge blow, knocking him off the stairs to crash at the feet of a swarm of pirates. He disappeared under a shower of sword blows, hammers on the anvil of his armour, while his soldiers rushed to his aid.

  Haakon swept the stairway with his axe and the Arab warrior jumped over it, to land just in time for the Viking to crash his shoulder into him. They rolled off the stairs, two vast men locked together, hitting the deck with a huge thump. Jean charged for the gap, his sword cutting down the two who tried to take the big warrior’s place. When he reached the deck there were just five men on it. When Januc joined him there were three. Jean hurled himself at the two white-clad bodyguards, driving them back in a flurry of strokes. That left Januc facing the man in the black robes.

  ‘Hello Hakim,’ he said. ‘Remember me?’

  A look of such astonishment appeared on the Arab’s face that Januc could only tip back his head and laugh.

  ‘That’s right. Januc.’ He bowed slightly. ‘In case you’ve forgotten, I’m the man who speared your brother like a pig.’

  Astonishment changed to malevolence. Hakim i Sabbah was feared throughout the Mediterranean for the purity of his hatred, the skill of his sword and the savagery with which he dealt with any and all of his enemies. Only one man had ever escaped his terrible vengeance. That man stood before him now.

  ‘By the beard of the Prophet,’ he bellowed, ‘I am His most fortunate child to have you delivered again into my hands.’

  ‘Not quite in them yet. I’m here, Hakim, the serpent who slithers on his belly away from any real fight. Slither over here and see what you will get.’ And with that, Januc dropped into his fighting stance, left hand reaching forward, sword arm curled back.

  In a riot of silver and black, Hakim i Sabbah drove at his most mortal foe. It was an attack fuelled by fury, vicious but unfocused. Januc parried and deflected the shower of blows, dodging to left and right, not attempting to strike back, letting the attack move him around the square aftdeck. One glance at Jean told him the stairs would be held; indeed, the Frenchman had already despatched the two warriors who had tried to join their leader. Below him, the soldiers of the Perseus had formed a solid rank of armour over their stricken captain. And in their midst, leaping over their heads to strike down with his axe on any foe foolish enough to draw near, as if from behind some ancient shield wall, was Haakon.

  Hakim’s assaults had tired him and exhausted his initial fury. He remembered now the prowess of the man he was facing, how he’d despatched Hakim’s brother, a noted swordsman himself, with arrogant ease. Hakim also remembered that he was the captain of the Silver Serpent, and men would soon be rushing to his aid. Patience, and Allah’s favour, would bring him more than Januc’s mere death – a drawn-out agony, lasting days, while he destroyed all that made his enemy a man.

  Januc noted the pause, the calculation, and hoped that Hakim’s first attacks had been enough to weaken his sword arm a little – his left arm, which made the Croatian’s preparations more complex, for left-handers were difficult to fight.

  Patience, Januc thought, remember the rule of the sword. It is not this attack, or the next, or even the one after that. Feint, retreat, lure his sword each time a little more out of true. And then …

  Januc launched a side cut at Hakim’s forward knee. The Arab withdrew it sharply, sweeping down with force to encounter the slashing blade, but Januc had halted its sweep suddenly and pushed the curving weapon, with wrist reversed, upwards towards Hakim’s groin. Once more the black robes swirled back, Hakim’s sword cutting down before him. Once more it encountered air, for Januc jerked it swiftly backwards over his own head, gathered his rear leg up to his front heel and lunged with a scything downward chop. Hakim saw the blow aimed to split open his head, a final commitment that, countered, would leave his opponent stretched out and exposed.

  I have him, Hakim i Sabbah thought exultantly, and stepped back, raising his scimitar with both hands to perfectly square-parry the blow, to catch the sharp of the blade on the sharp of his own, to sweep and throw the weapon aside to feel his own curved steel pressed so delightfully against his enemy’s throat. I’ll take an ear now, he thought, the rest of him later, and in pieces. Visions of langui
d days of torture rose before him even as his weapon rose, his wrist braced for the shock of a collision … that never arrived. For behind Januc’s head, as he brought his sword over, as his back heel came up to lightly touch his front one, even as he lunged again, a turn of a supple wrist delivered the blade level with the ground, straight into the armpit of Hakim, arm raised and triumphing in the symmetry of his party.

  The scimitar’s keen blade bit deep into the flesh, severing all the power that sustained the beautiful parry in an instant. Like a marionette with its strings suddenly cut, Hakim dropped his weapon and crumpled onto the deck, wrapping himself around Januc’s blade as if to prevent it from causing further damage. Januc followed him down, and only when the pirate lay propped against the mast did he withdraw the sword.

  Hakim’s eyes were glazed in surprise and pain, but open. Januc brought his face down level with his.

  ‘Allah is kind,’ he spoke softly, ‘for He has given me a great victory.’

  Hakim tried to say something vicious but he died before he could form the words.

  Looking up, Januc saw Jean regarding him.

  ‘Will you take his head, Jean? We could use it.’

  Wordlessly, Jean did as he was asked, while Januc swiftly severed the ropes of the serpent flag. It plunged to the deck, tongue and scales enveloping and swallowing up the body of he whose symbol it was. There was a despairing cry when the war banner fell, but it was as nothing to the cry that greeted the raising of Hakim’s decapitated, still turbaned head. Wailing and cheering was all that could be heard for the battle on both boats had ceased instantly, the pirates losing all their will to fight.

  But they were not the only pirates still around. The crack of a cannon suddenly reminded them of the presence of more.