The French Executioner

by C. C. Humphreys

  Everyone turned. At the alley’s end, their backs to the Campo, three Unicorns stood, white surplices flowing to the ground beneath masks that had both mane and horn. One of the unicorns held a bow in his hand. The biggest one, an axe. And the man who had spoken had an unusual square-tipped sword, its wide, flat blade balanced lightly on his shoulder.

  ‘You!’ Heinrich spluttered as all three removed their masks and dropped them on the ground. ‘Are you a cat? How many lives do you have?’

  ‘More than you,’ said Jean Rombaud easily, bringing his sword down before him and moving forward. ‘At least one more than you.’

  Both a stone and an arrow flew, and two crossbowmen fell.

  ‘Claim your money, my Lord. Grab the old man and the girl,’ said Heinrich, unsheathing his sword. ‘I’ll deal with this scum.’

  Jean swiftly calculated the battle odds. He hadn’t come this far to see his friends murdered at the end of an alley.

  ‘Januc, I think they need you down there more than we do.’

  ‘You can handle this many?’

  Haakon laughed. The sound went with the battle lust in his eye and two of the enemy broke step when they heard it. ‘There are only seven of them. Didn’t you see me on the galley?’

  ‘Six,’ corrected the janissary, his bow a blur, a feathered shaft appearing as if from thin air in the neck of one of the advancing men. ‘Now you might just have a chance.’

  With that, he leapt up and caught a flagpole thrust out over them. He spun his legs over, balanced on it, then stepped onto the narrow ledge that ran the length of this side of the palazzo. With a brief salute, he ran down it and leapt off to land lightly between Franchetto Cibo and his quarry, a curved sword suddenly in his hand.

  ‘That man,’ said Jean, ‘is a show-off.’

  Heinrich yelled, ‘Get the big brute, leave the French runt to me!’

  Haakon looked at Jean. ‘Brute?’ he said. ‘I’m deeply offended.’

  ‘You’re offended? He called me a runt.’

  Then they turned back to the enemy and, as one voice, let out the old mercenary cry.

  ‘Hoch! Hoch!’

  They closed, Haakon’s axe swung at shoulder height causing five soldiers to leap back. Heinrich side-stepped it to come straight at Jean, his heavy-bladed broadsword chopping down. Sparks flew as finely forged steel met its match, and intensified as Jean changed the square parry over his head to a slope that the German slid down, the force of his charge taking him through and past. A guard to his left, seeing a clear opening, lunged at Jean’s exposed chest. Twisting his body sharply round, the sword slid down the front of him, slicing through the Unicorn tunic to the flesh beneath, the force of the lunge bringing his opponent close. Jean dropped his raised hands, the pommel of the sword crashing down onto the guard’s knuckles. His scream of pain was swiftly cut off when Jean elbowed him hard in the mouth, knocking him backwards.

  Just in time, for Heinrich had recovered from his charge and had borne around swiftly. He thrust at Jean’s open back and the Frenchman just had time to drop the sword point square to the ground to parry, the broadsword’s blade snickering under his armpit. For a moment they were locked there, looking into each other’s eyes over a metal crucifix of Toledo steel, two swordsmen awaiting each other’s move.

  Their stalemate ended when a body crashed into them both, blood streaming from an axe wound to his shoulder.

  ‘Five!’ shouted Haakon exultantly, his triumph ending in another yell as four swords thrust at the stomach he’d exposed after his last killing cut. Three he caught on the haft of the axe, the fourth bit into his hip before he spun it away.

  ‘Bastard!’ he yelled at his assailant. ‘I hate to bleed!’

  And with that he pulled the axe over his head and, chopping down as if splitting kindling, split the man’s head in two.

  Jean spun away from the impact of the body. Heinrich took it full force, and it pinned him momentarily. Jean had time to look up the alley.

  Two men had fallen to Januc’s scimitar, two more were engaged with him now. Three Scorpions lay dead, a soldier sprawled across them, while another hacked in blood frenzy at their bodies. The remaining four were driving Beck, the Fugger, an old man, another man and two women Jean didn’t know back against the cart, urged on by a screaming man in the plumage of a fighting cock. It was a matter of seconds before they were pinned against the wood by the brutal swords, captured or slaughtered.

  ‘Haakon!’ he called. ‘To me!’

  The Norseman’s axe swung in a circle upwards, gathering blades. He swept them up and away, and the enemy, to keep hold, had to follow them. A gap opened and he leapt through it. Jean took a final swipe at Heinrich, whose leg was still pinned by his fallen soldier. He ducked under the square tip, which missed him by a finger’s width.

  Jean and Haakon arrived just in time. Beck had managed to slash the hand of one man, disarming him, but the other three’s flailing weapons had the rest pinned. Januc had wounded another but had taken a cut himself to his forehead and blood was flowing into his eyes. He seemed to be parrying the two weapons that still danced at him – for Franchetto had joined the fray with his rapier, now that the odds were more favourable – by blind instinct.

  Jean crashed into the side of one guardsman, Haakon into another, and then they were shoulder to shoulder before the alley end, their companions in the temporary shelter of their weapons. Januc, through his veil of blood, saw that he was isolated and, slipping under the wild swings and lunges of the Duke, joined Haakon on the other side.

  ‘What kept you?’ He grinned at them through a veil of blood.

  The three were soon four, as a snarling wolf hound ran to his master’s side.

  ‘Fenrir! By the grace of the gods!’ Haakon bent down and swiftly removed the rope and dragging stick, to be rewarded by frantic licking and whimpers. The Norseman smiled. ‘Now I know we will triumph!’

  There was a silence for a moment, punctuated by a huge cheer from the square.

  ‘Ah!’ Lucrezia gasped. ‘Someone has won the Palio.’

  Jean, Haakon and Januc levelled their weapons out before them, to counter the ten now levelled at them – for Heinrich had come forward with his remaining men. For a moment there was only the intense deep breaths coming from them all as they waited for someone to make the first move. Jean had seen the way Haakon had limped, he could see Januc reaching up to wipe away blood every few seconds. His own side pained him badly now he had time to feel it. The enemy were far from unscathed, but they were still double their numbers.

  Heinrich knew it too.

  ‘It is over. Surrender now, and maybe some of you will be spared. The women, anyway. They at least have their uses.’

  His men laughed and leered. Behind him, Jean heard Beck curse.

  ‘Fuck you! I’ll have your balls on this pick before you have anything from me!’

  Which Jean, even with his mind elsewhere, thought was odd coming from a boy. Then he was distracted by the sound of a cough and a voice, low and silky. It instantly brought back to him the nightmare of the gibbet cage.

  ‘Really, Heinrich. When you can take what you want, why do you bargain?’ The Archbishop of Siena stood with his back to the Campo. Behind him were his twenty bodyguards. He smiled again as his men moved forward. ‘So let us finish what you have started. No bargaining is required. They either throw down their weapons or they die on the spot.’

  ‘One question, Most Holy Father, before we face our most holy punishment.’ Lucrezia’s voice was thick with contempt. ‘Who won the Palio?’

  ‘Ah, my daughter, I regret to have to inform you, and my dear brother, that we cannot crow in triumph today. We – the Rooster contrada, that is – came second.’

  ‘Mother of God!’ stormed Franchetto. ‘Who has dared defeat us?’

  ‘It’s a sting in the tail to be sure,’ said his brother. ‘For the first time in half a century, it is the year of the Scorpion.’

  The cheer of ‘S
corpio!’ that broke from mother, daughter and uncle resounded down the alley. The Fugger looked wonderingly at the girl, then mutely gestured to the advancing swords.

  ‘I know,’ said Maria-Theresa, eyes bright, ‘but don’t you understand? This is really important. This is the Palio.’

  Lucrezia stretched out her knife before her. ‘I have lived long enough,’ she sighed. ‘This is a good day to die. Scorpio!’

  To the ranks of men halting before this defiance, this cry seemed to echo for ever down the little alley. Then all became aware that it was not an echo at all, but a chant taken up by scores of voices growing rapidly nearer. Within moments, the banner with its scaly, carapaced creature, poison dripping from its fangs, was waving at the alley’s entrance. Under it were a hundred and fifty celebrating Scorpions.

  ‘Father!’ yelled Giovanni from beneath the flag, oblivious in his joy to the scene between them. ‘Aunt! We won! We won!’

  ‘Yes, nephew,’ yelled back Lucrezia, ‘but unless you speed to us, like our Mephisto to the finishing line, we will have lost!’

  And thinking of no faster way to bring them she leapt forward and stabbed the nearest guardsman in the chest.

  The Scorpions drew their stilettos and rushed forward under their banner. Jean, Januc and Haakon whirled and struck out before them and the combination of assaults, in front and behind, caused the bodyguard rank to implode. In vain did Heinrich, Franchetto and the Archbishop cry for order. The alley dissolved into a mass of flailing bodies in which the heavier arms of the soldiers were of no advantage. It was as if a tide had rushed into a sea cavern, all order flung apart like jetsam.

  While the warriors kept at bay any soldier thrown out from the riot, Maria-Theresa and her uncle managed to crawl under the cart and prise off the drain cover.

  ‘Quickly!’ Lucrezia shouted in Jean’s ear. ‘This way!’

  The girl went first, guiding Abraham down, to be followed by Beck. Januc slipped in after, and he just managed to grab the back of Haakon’s breeches before the Viking tore off into the centre of the fray. ‘I was just starting to enjoy myself!’ he moaned, allowing them to pull him through the narrow grating, Fenrir dragged as reluctantly behind him.

  The Fugger hesitated at the edge of the hole. ‘Reminds me of the midden,’ he said to no one in particular. Then he leapt back out from under the cart screaming, ‘Daemon! Daemon!’

  How he hoped to be heard above the noise of combat not even he knew. But Corvus corax is a mighty bird, and hunts more by sound than by scent. In a rush of feathers, a blur of black descended onto his shoulder and cawed loudly in his ear. Clutching the bird to him, the Fugger leapt into the hole.

  Jean looked back at the mêlée. He could make out the taller figures of Heinrich and Franchetto striking out at all around them, friend or foe. For an instant, the German’s reddened eyes found him, and Jean saw the frustration and the fury there. Drawing a finger across his own throat, Jean smiled, and was rewarded by the sight of the hideous face contracting itself still more as Heinrich struggled to fight his way through to him and failed.

  Jean half descended into the hole, then turned back to Lucrezia. ‘How can we leave you and your brother?’

  ‘Do not be concerned about us. We will sting them a little, then melt like water into the desert sands. It’s what scorpions do.’

  A man-at-arms was thrown from the crowd near her. She reached down and cut a hunk out of his ear with her stiletto. He howled before being sucked up again into the throng.

  ‘They’ll never follow you down there. It’s a labyrinth, and my daughter has the only thread. We’ll bring you news in Montepulciano. Where will you be?’

  ‘On the road in from Radda, at the sign of the Comet, just outside the city walls.’

  Jean felt a rope being tied around his waist.

  ‘Go with God,’ said Lucrezia, and with a cry of ‘Scorpio!’ she rejoined the fight.

  ‘I have torches hidden further down,’ Maria-Theresa was saying as she knotted the rope around him. ‘Till then we are mole blind.’ She ran to the front of the file. ‘Ready?’

  Careless of reply, she headed down the passage. The rope tightened and each in turn was jerked forward into the darkness. The sounds of violence faded behind them and soon all that could be heard was the dripping – of water and of blood. They would have to wait for the promised torchlight to see either.

  EIGHT

  AT THE SIGN OF

  THE COMET

  Mathias van Frew sat in the crook of an old olive tree, resting a rusty arquebus across his knees. From this vantage, he had a view both down the road to Siena and up the steep hill to the walls of Montepulciano. Though the crests of the battlements were shrouded now in the early-morning mists, they could not conceal the immensity of the fortress-town beneath.

  From his perch, he could also see the front door of his inn and the comet emblazoned across its oak panels. As he regarded that flaming symbol, Mathias sighed and uttered his usual little prayer of thanks to Santa Catherina. Though his eyes were focused on the task he’d set himself, his mind could not help but contemplate what was his. Especially as the man who had made it all possible was once more resting under his red tiled roof.

  The inn was back from the road, a long driveway shaded by ancient cypresses leading to the large courtyard, the house set within crumbling outer walls of vivid umber. He knew it had once been the summer residence, and plague retreat, of a rich Sienese family, abandoned for nearly two decades before Mathias van Frew, soldier of fortune, stopped to have his wounds tended in the grounds and decided never to leave. The finest grapes in Tuscany grew all around, the wine presses were coaxed back into life, and the sun shone nearly all year round, drawing the pain from his many wounds, banishing the memory of the rain mist he’d grown up in, these rolling hills studded in vine, olive and chestnut the landscape of the mind he’d always desired, that he’d only dreamt of in the flat waterlands of his native Holland.

  He owed the discovery to Jean Rombaud, who had carried him there after an ambush had gone badly wrong, who had stayed with him until he could pull the musket ball out and Mathias’ flesh had grown pink and healthy again, then left him with both their shares of the booty looted from the hill town they’d pillaged. The gold had set up the Comet, and Mathias, in the ten years since Jean had left vowing to return some day, had changed from a reed-thin Dutch boy to a fat and contented Tuscan, host of the most prosperous country inn of the region of Montepulciano.

  The chance to repay some of this debt was a delight to him, despite the disapproval of Laura, the local girl he’d married, grown fat with and had five children by. Her word was usually law. But when Jean and his band of wounded, filthy stragglers appeared two nights after the Palio, it was Mathias’ word that, for once, ruled. He put them in a section of the sprawling house he’d recently renovated but hadn’t yet opened. Endless food, the best of his wine, new blankets and fresh bedding – anything they could desire was immediately provided for them. And Mathias himself cleaned and stitched the wound in Jean’s side, just as Jean had done for him ten years before.

  ‘Still in the same trade then, Jean?’ he’d said, as the gash was gradually pulled together by the thread.

  ‘In a way, old friend,’ came the enigmatic reply, ‘though I am working more for myself these days.’

  And then Jean slept with his strange crew beside him in a row. A giant with a giant dog, a bandaged, dark head appearing from another blanket, a one-handed man wrapping that one hand round a young woman, an old man shivering in three blankets despite the heat of the fire. Between him and Jean, a small young man with dark, tightly curled hair.

  Mathias had blown out the candles and looked back at the room, lit only by firelight. A strange crew indeed. But Jean had always attracted interesting companions. He should know. He had been one himself.

  He had closed the door softly and gone to watch outside. Jean had not spoken of pursuit, but that could have been an oversight due to tiredness.
His friend was in his care. Shouldering an arquebus that he only used now for the occasional quail, he had taken up his position in the olive tree.

  The morning star still winked, despite the glow on the horizon. It was his favourite time, this hour before dawn, and today the sun would rise on a particularly fine day. Jean Rombaud had returned and there were debts to be paid.

  For the next few days all they did was eat and rest. The summer had arrived in full force and a searing sun beat down on the ochre earth of the Tuscan hills, drawing from it the fruits of the field and the vine. In the private courtyard that served their wing of the rambling house, a huge chestnut spread its flower-laden boughs, scenting the air, while water flowed from a giant stone fish into a conch-shaped bath. Here there was a delicious coolness and shelter from the intense heat, sheepskins and blankets were scattered on the floor of umber tiles and a table was never empty of the delights of the region. Huge clay amphorae were filled with cool young wine that caused laughter and eventual sleep, with no ill results; vast cured hams hung from the branches, recently brought down from the Apennine snows where they had seasoned: goats’ cheeses wrapped in vine leaves, crushed on wheels of rough, dense bread; brochettes of kidneys and sweetbreads roasted over an open fire – a suckling pig revolved there one night, a whole sheep the next; fava beans mashed with first-press olive oil and wild garlic, eggplant fried with savoury, hard cheese. Figs from the previous year’s supply steeped in grappa, along with Laura’s pancakes stuffed with chestnut and ricotta, sated whatever pangs of hunger remained.

  In the drowsy warmth of the evenings came the stories. There was much to catch up on since the parting in Toulon. Haakon and Januc told the tale of the taking of the corsairs, the huge, fair Norwegian discovering that he had indeed inherited the bardic lyricism of his father; while the smaller, dark janissary crouched by the cooking fire, as if in a desert oasis, drawing his audience in. They counterpointed each other so well that the tale was demanded again the following evening, and again on the third, by which time the enemy fleet had increased to twenty strong and Jean had lost track of how many dozens he had personally slain with his square-tipped sword.