The French Executioner

by C. C. Humphreys

At first the older man interjected with insults and comments on his sanity. Gradually, though, he quietened, listening with mouth half-opened to the scarcely believable events. And when the Fugger returned to the subject of what had brought him back to Munster, his father reached into the cavern where his gold was hidden, pulled out a golden thaler and began to toss the coin back and forth.

  ‘And this hand’ – his voice was soft now – ‘he has it with him still? Here in Munster?’

  ‘Yes, Father. We have escaped from terrible situations, and when we escape from here, we will fulfil Jean’s vow. We will journey back to … to the place where we met, and we will bury it there. And our Queen can at last rest in peace.’

  ‘A queen, eh?’

  The gold coin went back and forth between his father’s hands, catching the candlelight. The Fugger, now his tale was done, felt suddenly very tired, the sparkle of the coin making his eyes droop.

  His father went on, ‘I am thinking of another queen. At least one who would be thus … honoured. Ah, Albrecht.’ The hand that came down upon his shoulder made him wince, but it settled there and did a strange thing. It began to caress. ‘Albrecht, my dear son, don’t you see? You have the chance to redeem yourself to me. To save your sister, your mother and the honour of the Fugger name.’

  ‘How, Father?’ The Fugger’s voice had risen a few notes. He couldn’t stop staring at the hand on his shoulder. ‘I would give anything to do that.’

  ‘Of course you would. You are the son I raised you to be, a man of honour.’ Cornelius leant in, his voice low. ‘Jan Bockelson thinks that this Anne Boleyn was a martyr to the cause of the new religion. Do not ask me how. You saw how excited he became when he found out who your friend was. How much more so were he actually to possess a part of her?’

  A hand on his shoulder. A gold coin still held up, catching the candlelight. The Fugger didn’t understand.

  ‘A part of her, Father?’

  ‘Yes, my boy. Give him this witch’s hand. He thinks he is God on earth, a new Messiah performing miracles. The only one he hasn’t tried is the raising of the dead. It will stop him marrying your sister. He’ll be saving himself for Anne Boleyn.’

  Suddenly the Fugger knew what his father meant. ‘You want me to betray my friend?’

  ‘You would rather betray your family? As you did before? When one act on your behalf could save them?’

  ‘Oh Father!’ Of all the horrors he had experienced in this room, this realisation was the worst. ‘No! I can’t. I can’t!’

  ‘You can, and you will.’ The tenderness had vanished. The purple blotches were back, the fury returned to the eyes. ‘For if you do not, you will have betrayed us all again, consigned your sister to hell, your mother to rape and murder, your family name to the devil. You will be punished in hell for that. Oh, and on earth too. Oh yes, punished on earth most keenly.’

  The Fugger watched his father reach up to the roof where a hazel switch lay in a gap between loam and beam. He closed his eyes, seeing only the deep blackness of a midden. The blows that had fallen upon him there in his nightmares, just punishment for his innumerable sins, fell upon him now.

  ‘Another week, ten days at most, I reckon,’ said Uriah Makepeace. ‘They’re good fighters, for non-professionals, but it’s the food that’ll wear ’em down. Always the same in sieges, right? King Jan’s going to let all the women and children leave soon, and the women are the best fighters. The men won’t last long after they’ve gone. Someone will betray the city.’ He leant forward. ‘Speaking of food, can I tempt you with another bowl of rat stew? I know a lot of people complain of it, but I’ve always been partial to a bit of rat. Just as well, really.’

  It was the second day Jean had spent with the Englishman and he had been a useful guide to the defences, enabling Jean to spot some alternative routes out of the city, should they be necessary. He could confirm what his former comrade had told him. The defence was near to final collapse.

  He declined the rat, pushed his chair away from the table. ‘You don’t seem to be suffering too much, Uriah. Not compared to the scarecrows I’ve seen around the city.’

  ‘Ah.’ Makepeace helped himself to another ladleful. ‘That’s because I’m ’is Majesty’s military adviser and Lord ’igh Executioner in one. The favoured rarely starve. As you shall see at the wedding feast tonight.’

  Jean stood, and went to look out into the street. He was still hoping the Fugger would come and find him. He had left word at his house with his mother, but she had said he was involved in family business and would come if he could. If not, it was vital Jean came that evening to the palace, to the wedding. Jean hoped it would be their last evening in that hellish place.

  ‘Can this Bockelson really take a fourth wife?’ he asked.

  Uriah laughed.‘’e can do what ’e wants. Actually four is quite moderate. Since ’e made polygamy legal, some of ’is followers took as many as twelve. ’ad three myself, but once the novelty wore off, they were just a load of nagging women, so I got rid of ’em all.’

  ‘So his word is the law, is it?’

  ‘Oh yes. Quite the piece of work is our good King Jan. ’e used to be a tailor, did you know? In Leiden. Still makes all the costumes you see ’imself. And ’e used to perform in all the Passion plays and suchlike. Got the word of God direct, so it seems, and ’e can rant for days, all that Biblical stuff. Very effective. Coupled with ’is good looks – and you know how that impresses the ladies – well, ’e just took power. Did quite well ’ere for a while, ’ad other Anabaptists flocking from all over.’ He sighed. ‘A few thousand tried to break through, relieve the siege, but those Germans and Swiss out there slaughtered ’em in the fields. So it’s just us now. And unless this apocalypse ’e keeps on about comes soon, it’ll be finished in a matter of days.’

  Jean came back to the table. ‘And what about you, Makepeace? Are you going to fight till the last?’

  The Lord High Executioner guffawed. ‘Oh yeah. You know me. I’m a mercenary like you. I’ve only stayed this long because the wages are better ’ere than out there. They don’t believe in money, see. Just leave it lying around, or stuff it in their cannon. So I’ve picked up a tidy amount. I’ll make my move in a few days, probably. Want to come? I could use an extra sword to guard my booty.’

  Jean shook his head. ‘I aim to be gone soon, maybe even tonight. Friends on the outside are waiting for me.’

  ‘And your friend, the one you came looking for? Do you believe me now? I ’ear about anyone who gets in or out. Trust me, no one of that description’s climbed over in the last couple of weeks. Everyone’s trying to go the other way.’

  Jean nodded. He hoped Beck had already found Haakon and Januc in the siege lines, that she would be there when he emerged. If not, there was no point awaiting her in a doomed city. He would have to think of something else.

  ‘Well,’ said the Englishman, stretching. ‘Got to be seen doing my job. For a few more days at any rate. Time for a stroll around the defences before the ceremony. Want to come?’

  Jean grabbed his sword, picked up his saddle bag. He could still feel the weight of the hand nestled into his back. ‘Why not?’

  One last look for Beck, just in case. Check the tower where they had entered was still the best place to leave. Then visit a madman’s palace, and hope the Fugger was as ready to go as he was. He suspected he would be. That father of his did not look like someone you wanted to be around for too long.

  Cornelius was not a member of the most successful banking family in the Holy Roman Empire for nothing. His negotiating skills were sharply honed and he could smell desire in all its forms, whether for power, money or the caresses of a woman. And he had learnt, in the three years since his city had been transformed by the beliefs of the radical Christians, that the promise of an apocalyptic salvation was, for many, the most powerful desire of all.

  He had played King Jan like a lute. Flattering him for honouring his family in the choice of their daughter,
caressing him with honeyed words of how he had the ear of the Emperor himself, how he would fetch Jan’s fellow monarch to negotiate the besiegers’ surrender personally. He had had an astrological chart commissioned that pointed to the imminent apocalypse, the laying waste of the King’s enemies by a divine queen, risen up to aid the ascension of Jan and his elect to the highest realm of God’s infinite majesty. Above all, he tempted him with hints of what he would reveal to him that night. A special dowry for his daughter.

  ‘For you see, Almighty,’ he declared before the huge throne that Jan straddled, ‘this very night will I present the means to that ascension. For is it not written in Ezekiel, “Take the dried bones of Israel and the bodies come together in resurrection”?’

  Jan chewed upon the not-so-dry bone of a freshly roasted dog. ‘Chapter eleven, verse ten.’ He sucked noisily at the marrow. ‘I keep telling them all – I await the last power to perform the ultimate miracle. The raising of the dead. Then shall all who have died in our cause be raised up. For as that verse goes on, “So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great host.” That’s why they all fight for me and die in joy. They know I will find the power to raise them up again.’

  ‘And you will find that power tonight, Most Holy. All I ask is that you place your guards and that they look to me for a sign.’

  The former tailor’s eyes shone with a fanatic’s desire. ‘They are yours to command. Provide me with this and you and your family will sit at my right hand when I ascend to my kingdom above.’

  Then he turned to whisper something in Alice Fugger’s ear, something that caused her to blush furiously, giggle and fix on her father a most impudent stare.

  Cornelius backed away, fake joy on his face, bowing before the throne. Near the door, he spoke to the leader of the palace guards. When he got to where his son stood, he snarled, ‘Where is this so-called friend of yours? If he doesn’t come soon, your sister will be wed and our family’s name destroyed.’

  The Fugger’s eyes were shut tight and he murmured words over and over to himself. When his father pinched him hard, he opened one eye and said, ‘He will be here, oh yes he will. Jean Rombaud keeps his word, even if his friends do not.’

  ‘And he will have this hand on him? You are certain?’

  The Fugger nodded a few times, jerkily, then shut his eyes again and returned to his chanting.

  He did not chant for long. The door to the chamber was opened again, and the two executioners strode in.

  ‘Ah, my most excellent general Makepeace.’ The King had risen on his dais and his court automatically did the same. ‘And his equally illustrious friend. You must sit by me and tell me about the martyrdom of my cousin Anne Boleyn. Did you not know we were related? Oh yes, the Astrologer General has drawn up a hereditary chart. We are both of the house of David. Like our saviour, Jesus!’

  Jean stayed bowed low in emulation of Makepeace. The last thing he wanted was to be trapped in a mad conversation about his Queen. Fortunately, another would-be queen was upset that her King was not paying enough attention to her. Alice distracted Jan with a tongue in his ear, and Makepeace and Jean were able to back away.

  With a pillar behind him, Jean looked over the room. It resembled one of those masques the nobility were so fond of, or the feast of fools, where outlandish costumes were donned to match outlandish behaviour. Here the robes were all of a Biblical nature, and white-bearded desert prophets stood in groups conversing with women in shawls and headdresses, sandals on their feet. Heavily armed men in curved helmets, like metal turbans, stood around the walls. Reed torches burnt in holders every dozen paces, sending monstrous shadows across tables that, if they did not sink under the weight of food, would drive to a delirium of joy the scarecrow bands Jean had seen that day at their posts defending the city walls. It was always the same in any army, royal or peasant. The leaders ate while their followers starved.

  If I can just find the Fugger we can be gone. I’d rather be hungry at that tower while we wait for midnight than stay here and partake of a madman’s wedding feast.

  He spotted his companion across the room. He was standing next to his father in a curious pose, his head sunk into his shoulders. Jean could just see Cornelius whispering furiously to his son from the side of his mouth. There seemed to be something wrong with the Fugger, in the way he was standing, as if something was broken in him. And he was shuffling again, just as he had under the gibbet.

  All the more reason to be gone, Jean thought, and he began to push through the crowd. As he moved, there seemed to be another movement within the room, of soldiers and prophets shifting position, and he had a vague sense he was part of a galliard, even the centre of that dance, that his steps were causing others to react and counter his moves. He tried to shrug the thought away, blame it on the city, the madness of it, the madness he had seen in so many desperate eyes that day. Nonetheless, as he walked across the room it seemed time was slowing down somehow, as if in anticipation of some event. Even his own motion appeared slow to him and it seemed an age before he was standing before the Fuggers, father and son.

  His friend’s eyes were fast shut, but with a sharp elbow from his father in the ribs they jerked open to dart wildly around, seeing Jean, refusing to settle on him, flitting from torch, to crown, to dais and back, hovering finally somewhere above Jean’s head.

  ‘My friend,’ said Jean, ‘what is wrong?’

  ‘Friend.’ The Fugger’s eyes at last fixed on the Frenchman, filling with tears as they did. Stepping forward, raising his one hand to Jean’s neck, he kissed him on his left cheek. ‘I am sorry.’ The one hand dropped away, and Jean stepped back.

  ‘Sorry?’ The words came out so slowly, as if slurred. ‘For what?’

  As he said it, something in him already knew the answer and he turned, but not quickly enough, for burly men in Biblical helms were there to stop the arm that reached for his sword, to seize the other, to subdue him quickly through weight and numbers. As he fell under them, all he could see, in the eye of his mind, was Haakon’s last rune, turned over on the stone floor in Montepulciano. TIR reversed, the arrow aimed at him. The rune of betrayal.

  Held tight, he was dragged to the centre of a room suddenly clear, for everyone had scattered to the walls at the disturbance. King Jan was standing before his throne on the raised dais, a phalanx of armed men before him.

  ‘What does this mean? Why do you treat my guest in this way?’ He broke off, and his voice leapt a few notes in pitch. ‘Or is he an assassin sent by my enemies?’

  Makepeace strode forward. ‘Most mighty, I know this man. He is a believer, like us, he means you no harm. He is here to help. He—’

  ‘I think not.’ Cornelius had come up beside the Englishman and now stepped before him. ‘What would you call a man, O Holy One, who knows your greatest desire and withholds it from you?’

  The Holy One snapped, ‘I would call such a man a vile traitor, because he denies to God’s Prophet the means to do his will.’

  ‘Even so.’ Cornelius now reached out and put his hand on Jean’s shoulder. ‘And such a traitor is he. For he conceals that which you most need to lead us to our ascension.’ Stepping back, he barked, ‘Search him!’

  Jean’s clothes were torn from him and he was powerless to stop it. He stood naked before the throne, the only covering on his body the bandage he’d wrapped around himself before entering the city.

  ‘Oh, Fugger,’ he called, ‘what have you done?’

  The end of the bandage was seized and his guards released their grip on Jean long enough to spin him out of it. Round and round he went, in the now silent room, and when he stood there finally and completely naked, a velvet bag lay at his feet.

  There were gasps, and Jan Bockelson cried out, ‘What does he have there? Is it a weapon?’

  Cornelius snatched up the bag and raised it high in the air.

  ‘A weapon for your use, Majesty.
A weapon sent from God. Behold the legacy of our beloved martyr, Anne Boleyn!’

  And with a flourish that would befit a street conjuror, Cornelius Fugger drew a six-fingered hand out into the torchlight.

  There was mayhem. People surged forward. Jean pulled his left arm free, hit the man who had held it in the face, tried to twist away, but another guard seized him and all subdued him with kicks and blows.

  Anne’s hand was borne to the dais, and there the King snatched it up with a screech of joy.

  ‘It is true! Six fingers! By heaven, six! And untainted, untouched, fresh as if taken only today. A miracle! The Lord has delivered unto us a sign. For is it not said in Ezekiel, chapter thirty-seven, verse eleven: “And you shall know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and raise you from your graves.” ’ He raised the hand high into the air. ‘Behold! He has opened the graves. He has raised us from our graves. The kingdom of heaven is upon us!’

  A universal shout, cries of ‘Alleluia!’ and ‘Hosanna!’ filled the room.

  ‘Look ye, O my people, the hand of the Lord is upon us!’

  ‘Amen!’ came the reply.

  ‘A queen’s hand is with us, to raise the sword and deliver us from our enemies.’ Jan stood now upon his throne, towering above them all, messianic fire in his eyes. ‘I have found my fourth queen, as written in the scriptures. Today I marry Anne Boleyn.’

  Only one voice cried out in fury at this, but Alice was struggling against impossible acclaim. When the hubbub had died a little, his daughter delivered into the arms of his wife, Cornelius once more stood forward, pointed at Jean and shouted, ‘And what of this traitor?’

  ‘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.