‘All right, first company with me. Let’s secure the street. And you’ – Januc saw him turn to a quivering townsman – ‘I never want you to leave my side.’
‘But my … goods. These bags here,’ Cornelius was jabbering. ‘I have the Landgrave’s word.’
‘I will leave men here. But only after you lead me to the gates will you earn the wages of your betrayal.’
‘But my servants can show you—’
‘No!’ Once more a mailed hand choked off the sound of pleading. ‘Forward!’
Heinrich’s men moved out behind their leader, Januc close behind. Three townsfolk trying to raise the alarm were swiftly silenced, but Januc didn’t even draw his blade. He would fight to defend himself, that was all. His weapon sought only one victim this night.
The voice, so impressively controlled, so marvellously deep and full, poured over the ecstatic crowd.
‘And it is written in Ezekiel: “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.” ’ King Jan paused, and looked down on his followers from his dais. ‘And I say unto you, that time has come. See what God has sent his chosen people. See the symbol of his love for us. See the hand of Anne Boleyn!’
Jean didn’t want to look. He was more concerned with rubbing the ropes that tied him to one pillar of the Great Hall – like Samson, he’d been told, mockingly – up and down against a rough patch he’d found on the stonework. But the power of those six fingers was great, they drew him now as they had from the first moment he’d seen them. Strangely, as he looked, he heard, through all the gasps and acclamation of an ecstatic crowd, a deep laugh, the laugh of a queen, just as he’d first heard it months ago on Tower Green. He knew it was a trick of memory, but for a moment it made him smile. He redoubled his efforts on the ropes.
‘Behold!’ Jan raised the hand to cries of ‘Hosanna!’ and ‘Hallelujah!’ ‘See how it is unblemished, though the body died so long ago. Died, but shall be resurrected this night.’
To a universal shout, trumpets blared in welcome, drums were beaten, the staves of the Elders were rhythmically thumped on the wooden stage. The noise quickly settled into a steady beat, those who were without percussion clapping in time or chanting the words ‘She is risen! She is come!’ over and over. The King began to dance, a series of sinuous steps. Anne’s hand held out before him, her fingers in his, as if she were his partner in a galliard. As the pace of the drumming, stamping and chanting built, as sweat bloomed on faces, Divara, First Queen of Munster, gave a rapturous cry and started to swirl, arms straight out, head thrown back, eyes half-shut, lips apart in a steady exhalation of pleasure held in the single word ‘Come!’ Others began to spin and cry out as their King stepped into the centre of what became a circle of seven dancing women, moving left. Around them another circle of Elders moved right, and around them the guards and remaining members of the court joined hands and took the opposite route, paralleling the women. It was not just flesh joining them in these concentric rings. They pulled around and around, the pace building along with the one cry, the one word, the invitation.
‘Come! Come! Come!’
Jean remembered something Makepeace had told him, that before his elevation to royalty, in the days of his tailoring in Leiden, Jan Bockelson had been an enthusiastic participant in the local Passion plays. He had been a notable John the Baptist, it was said, and had created some of the more spectacular effects.
Jean could believe it. The way Jan held the hand was perfect, the weight and angle finely judged, the movements so counterpointed that even Jean could believe there was a whole person spreading beyond those six fingers. King Jan’s followers certainly believed, saw the illusion as fact, expected the immediate and corporeal appearance of their saviour: Anne Boleyn, Queen of the Apocalypse.
‘Come!’ was still the one cry of the whirling circles.
The pace was building, the air filled with an energy that crackled around their heads. It was like the moment in a storm before the lightning and Jean did not know what would happen when it struck. Would Anne Boleyn appear? The Fugger had told him that she had done so before in the dungeon, at a moment just like this, a moment of great need and evil men’s desire.
I did not fear my death except in this, the harm I could do after I passed over were this vow not spoken.
That is what she had said. And he had failed in that vow.
Jean concentrated on the bonds and the patch of rough stone. One rope had already snapped, the other was fraying. And pressed against the back of his head was a thin strip of steel which gave him hope. If he could reach it in time.
He soon found himself chanting with the rest.
‘Come! Come! Come!’
The element of surprise had not been as great as the attackers had hoped. One screaming man running through the town had woken those who had managed to sleep through the diversionary barrage. The townsmen, many of whom slept near the main gates, had poured out of their barracks, and though many had been cut down in the mercenaries’ first assault, accurate firing from the walls had broken that attack and allowed many defenders to take up positions behind barricades. The gates were held and with each moment that passed more Munsterites were arriving. The gates had to be taken, and taken fast.
Januc, crouched with the others in a conquered storehouse, knew it. He knew von Solingen did as well – and there lay Januc’s problem. He would be content to lurk in this building and let others carry out the vital assault. He had no cause here, except Jean Rombaud. But in this maze of a town, with fanatics defending every street, the only way to get to Jean would be right behind the big German. If Heinrich was a normal commander he would order his men forward, stay in safety, and claim the glory later. But he was not normal. His eyes were filled with a vision of blood and the cross that Januc had seen on the battlefields of the world. Heinrich would lead the assault himself, and Januc would have to follow him. Follow him and keep him alive – for the moment.
Januc noticed two wagons standing to one side, big oak carriages of the kind used to transport goods. The wheels looked intact. He approached his leader, who was intent on organising reluctant men into assault waves. Clutching his newly purchased broadsword – he’d felt that Heinrich might just remember a scimitar – he went up and pulled at Heinrich’s sleeve.
‘Captain, these wagons. We could push them before us, give us some cover.’
Von Solingen, who had been about to berate one from the ranks who had dared to interrupt him, instantly recognised the wisdom of the interruption.
‘See to it then. Lead one of the wagons yourself.’
The wagons were quickly pulled into position before the barrack doors, a few men placed before them to scatter, draw fire, the biggest men standing behind, ready to heave.
‘Now!’ Heinrich yelled.
The gates were flung back and the front men burst out, most of them cut down in the first seconds. The others heaved on the wagons and, after a moment, they both lurched forward. Their appearance through the gates called down more fire – the defenders were staggering their volleys like trained musketeers – and a saker’s blast exploded into the centre of the left wagon. It ripped apart some panels, metal and splintered wood causing men to reel aside, dead or dying. But the cannon was loaded for flesh, with small fragments, not the heavy ball that could have broken a wheel. The shuddering carriage rolled on, picking up speed as fresh men replaced the fallen.
Twenty paces to go now, the fire from above and ahead slackening as defenders put down arquebus and musket to seize sword, stone and pickaxe. Fifteen, and the wagons, catching the gradient of a downward slope, began to fly away from the hands that pushed. They nearly slewed together, then split apart and smashed into the barrels and gabions that made up the inner barricade. It was designed to meet resistance from the front should the gates fall to direct attack, so its rear aspect was weak and it imploded like kindling under the adze.
‘Hoch! Hoch!’ cried von Solingen, his mercenaries taking up the battle cry, following him from behind the wagons and over the crumpled barricade. Bodies trapped there were crushed under heavy boots, while those who had escaped the shattering now flung themselves onto the assailants. They lacked armour but not ferocity, and the combat was brutal.
A pitchfork thrust at his chest caused Januc to spin and block with his sword upright, the force of the attacker’s charge bringing his face level with the Croatian’s. For a moment, Januc gazed into the face of a cobbler or a wheelwright, not a soldier, with eyes fired by fear, lit by a fanaticism that now powered the swing of the pitchfork at Januc’s head. He ducked it easily, stepped close and snapped his knee into the other’s stomach, once, twice, taking away his breath. He raised his sword, and the man who was not a soldier looked up at death descending from his hometown sky. With a sudden twist of his wrist, Januc brought the pommel of the sword straight down, hitting the crouched and winded man just above the temple. He fell, like a beast in an abattoir, neck turned up for the killing stroke to follow. But Januc had moved on. He was there to kill, but only one man, and only when that man had led him to his comrade. The cobbler or wheelwright would wake up later and then have to take his chances in the sack of his town.
Ahead, he saw the enemy whose life he had to preserve, in the thickest part of the defenders’ final resistance. Somehow he had got separated from the bulk of his men. Heinrich von Solingen was standing there, feet spread wide apart, his giant double-handed sword carving a figure eight in the air before him, leaving a cleared space between him and five snarling assailants who darted towards him on every angle the huge blade did not cover. A sixth joined and the lance he carried altered the balance, the thrust of it forcing the German to parry. Air no longer filled by his scything metal was filled now by the other five, their weapons rushing at the exposed stomach.
Januc was there, taking three of the thrusts on his own sword, a fourth on his breastplate, a fifth led away by a swing of his hip. There was no time for consideration then, no time to care if these were soldiers or civilians. They were men with swords and they were trying to kill him, and in a few seconds they were all dead, falling to the long and the short blade of the two mercenaries.
The mask was before him, words moving on the half-lips. ‘I owe you.’
‘And you will pay me,’ whispered Januc as the other turned away.
The gates were twenty paces beyond the carnage of the barricade and the heavily armoured mercenaries gained them easily, a wake of bodies marking the progress of men who had not Januc’s restraint. The early, too eager ones died screaming in a shower of boiling liquid that fell like molten rain. Von Solingen was not that far gone in blood that he had forgotten the lessons of a siege. He had not stood under the deadly shower, but was back a pace, deploying his few crossbowmen to keep down the heads of the assailants above.
‘The beam!’ he shouted, and the dozen strongest men, recovered from their exertions on the wagons, now stooped below the giant bar of oak that rested between the metal supports at either end of the gates. ‘Lift!’
The bar seemed frozen for a moment, then slowly, so slowly, it rose. A man dropped, caught by a rock flung from above, the flinger himself reeling back, plucking at the feathered bolt that sprouted from his neck. Heinrich took the man’s place and, at his joining, the bar flew from its supports. The men raised it high above their heads and ran to hurl it against the walls beside the gates. Another group ran forward to pull them open and, after an initial groaning reluctance, the gates of Munster swung wide for the first time in sixteen months, and the men who had waited so impatiently for their opening began to pour in.
As the first of the reinforcements entered, Heinrich rallied what was left of his own men. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘we’ll let these Swiss bastards do most of the work. But we will move around the defence to the palace. For the palace is where our prize lies, according to that scum who led us here. Bring him to me!’
A quivering Cornelius was dragged from the barracks by his guard.
‘I have done all you require of me. I have a bargain with the Landgrave!’ he bleated at them.
The men laughed and Heinrich leant over him. ‘The Landgrave is breaking wind in his tent. He will not enter the city or honour any bargains until this heretic rabble is dealt with. So you’ – and here he jabbed the elder Fugger in the chest – ‘are going to lead us by back ways to the palace.’
‘But my … my possessions?’
‘Your gold is safe, banker!’ He spat out the last word like an insult. ‘I left men to guard it. Once you have led us to our destination you can go to it or to the Devil.’
Cornelius sagged in the guard’s grip. He knew he had no choice. ‘Very well. I know a route that will be little guarded.’
Screams were filling the streets. The Swiss were spreading out and beginning the slaughter of the men who had so viciously opposed them for sixteen long months.
‘The defences will not last long.’ Heinrich pushed Cornelius before him. ‘Lead us to the palace.’
Januc took his place a few men behind their leader.
Rombaud, he thought, sending his silent words out into the savaged night, if you are still alive, stay that way a little longer.
His last bond snapped as the whirling reached a peak and bodies started to plummet off the dais into the rest of the swaying crowd; first the guards, then the Elders, finally the inner core of women. All fell, save one, kneeling alone in the centre of the platform, head bowed, arm raised, hand joined to another hand that seemed to be the only thing holding him up.
‘Behold!’ cried King Jan, his strong voice ending the cries of the last of the falling dancers. ‘Behold she who has come to save us all, to drown our enemies in her holy fire. Cry welcome to the Queen!’
At the end of Jan’s hand it seemed a flickering light was coalescing, his fingertips passing sparks into those he held, receiving them back; and within the flames crackling above both hands a greater shape was growing, an arm beyond the hand, a body beyond the arm.
As one the crowd cried ‘Welcome!’ and Jean, still standing at the pillar, looked too, could almost believe he saw the damask dress, a square collar, the first hint of a long neck.
‘No!’ he screamed, and as he did the doors of the great hall burst open and a soldier, his brow split by a wound gushing blood, fell through them.
‘The gates are broken! The enemy are here!’
Crying thus, the soldier fell and died in the doorway.
The silence that followed was absolute, as if a hole had opened in the air and sucked all noise within it. All heat too, for the flames that had danced up the arms of a dead queen had vanished as she had. A tailor from Leiden was left kneeling on a stage, clutching the remains of a corpse. Magic and majesty swept away by the simplicity of death entering a room.
As complete as the silence was the noise that followed it. The doors were slammed shut and screams, commands, prayers exploded, the crack of Jean Rombaud head-butting the first of the guards indistinguishable amid the babble. The second managed at least to cry out before a forearm to the throat choked off the sound, but Jean was moving through the crowd before the guard’s body reached the floor.
The people, in their panic, had rushed to where their leader still knelt, Anne’s hand still loosely clutched in his. Jean managed to squeeze right up to the front of the stage before he was noticed.
An Elder in title, a youngish man in reality, saw him and cried, ‘The prisoner is loose!’
Fear opened a slight gap in the crowd and, ducking under the frantic grasp of the crier, Jean scrambled up onto the platform, rolling beyond the outstretched arms. He came up onto his knees and found himself face to face with Jan Bockelson.
‘Help me, brothers!’ the King of Munster managed to get out before Jean’s arm went around his throat.
Standing in the same movement, Jean brought his victim up with him, his hand rising to the back of his head just as t
he first of the Elders tried to climb up onto the stage. And just as Jan Bockelson had silenced the crowd with the raising of Anne’s hand, so did Jean Rombaud now with the raising of his. For in it was Makepeace’s pistole, a small enough object it was true, yet vivid when pressed against the neck of their Messiah.
‘No, no,’ said Jean clearly. ‘If you want your king to live, you will stay where you are.’
Silence again in the hall. Beyond it the unmistakable sounds of battle drawing ever closer. Pressure within and pressure without and the pressure of a blade against King Jan’s throat allowed his words to squeeze through.
‘Please don’t hurt me!’ he whimpered. ‘Please!’
‘Then do, very slowly, what I tell you to do. Place the hand within the folds of my doublet here. No, not your hand, the other one.’
Just as the movements of the hand before had been followed so closely, so they were now by the same eyes. The attention was absolute until the doors were flung open again and another man, less bloodied than his predecessor but equally terrified, ran into the room, yelling, ‘The enemy have reached the great square!’
There was silence no more. One of the Elders, a head taller than the rest who Jean remembered Makepeace had named as Knipperdolling, the Court Viceroy, stepped up to the dais. Jean’s blade bit into flesh and a trickle of blood appeared at the throat of his captive.
‘You may murder our leader,’ cried Knipperdolling, ‘but if I do not go to the aid of my flock we will all be murdered.’
‘Then go. I do not seek anyone’s death here. Your city will see enough of that tonight. I will leave with what I came with, that is all, and take my own chances on the streets.’
‘Lower your weapon and use it in our cause,’ pleaded Knipperdolling. ‘Expunge your sins, take up Christ’s love. You may yet find salvation among us.’
‘I think not,’ said Jean. ‘Mine lies elsewhere. But I would not stop you hastening yours.’
‘What are you doing? Don’t leave me with him!’ screamed the would-be Messiah as Knipperdolling and the rest of the Elders made to leave, seizing weapons stacked at the door. ‘There is no salvation without my word! Come back! I command it!’
The French Executioner Page 36
