Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris

by Tim Willocks

  She braced her hands on her knees and, though she closed her eyes, she kept her head erect, and she stifled the urge to groan. She didn’t want to distract the pack from Joco’s humiliation. She breathed in and out with all her concentration. The contraction eased but did not completely relax.

  She realised that there would be no more complete relaxations until the baby was born; if she stayed alive that long. The journey had begun; rather, the last stage of the long journey she and the babe had taken. The journey that would end with the beginning of another. Or so she must believe. She felt herself spinning on the wheel of life and death, her perceptions both exquisite and numbed. She had to open her body, her very soul. She had to surrender to her child’s will. She had to match him in courage; or neither would survive. If he wished to be born into a world of demons, then in a world of demons she would suckle him.

  Were those real bells that rang with such abandon? Or did she dream them?

  She opened her eyes.

  Joco was half-choked and wholly broken. Grymonde let go of his head but replaced it with a foot on the back of his neck and straightened up. Carla felt an impulse to shout: Finish him. Kill him. Almost as if he had heard her, Grymonde turned and gave her a questioning look. He had murder in his eyes and she wondered if indeed she had not spoken the words out loud. He turned away.

  Grymonde wagged the hammer at his band of young scurvies, who seemed only to admire him the more for having turned on one of their number with such savagery.

  ‘He who has a mind to beat a dog will always find a stick.’

  He raised his foot and Joco crawled away on hands and knees, vomiting. He squirmed to his feet and stumbled away down the alley by the side of the house.

  ‘Do you want us to bring him back, chief?’

  ‘He is dead to me.’

  Grymonde pointed the hammer at Estelle.

  ‘La Rossa, you brought Gobbo and Joco into our band. They failed us. As you failed us.’ He gestured at the slain. ‘You failed to open the door.’

  Estelle stared at him in disbelief. She looked around at the feral young men and found no supporters, only grins and jeers. She looked at Carla.

  Carla felt a terrible sympathy for the girl, despite her enmity; but so overwhelmed were her senses by the gruesome theatre about her, and the violent change inside her body, it was all she could do to stay upright on the chair.

  ‘But I was brave,’ said Estelle. Her voice was clearer than the bells. ‘Altan almost killed me. If I hadn’t told you about him, he might have killed you.’

  Carla thought she saw pity in Grymonde’s eyes. No one else did.

  Estelle raised a pale, thin arm and pointed at Carla.

  ‘Carla will tell you I was brave.’

  ‘It’s true,’ said Carla. ‘Estelle could not have been braver.’

  She caught a glimpse of Grymonde’s face and realised she had only sealed Estelle’s banishment. Having shown the gang he would take no dissent from them, he had to show them he would take none from Carla either.

  ‘Sometimes bravery is not enough.’

  Estelle held her hand out. ‘I want my knife back.’

  ‘See her off, lads, back to her rats.’

  Three of the louts made to grab her. Estelle slithered through their hands, avoided their kicks. One of them pursued and grabbed the neck of her smock as she pulled away. It tore down the back. She spun and grabbed at his crotch with a hiss and he let go to defend himself and Estelle fled naked down the street. As she disappeared, Carla thought she heard her sob. Though it was not true, for Estelle was no friend, she felt as if she had lost her only ally in that street of the violent and the crazed.

  ‘Now listen,’ said Grymonde. ‘The bourgeois militia is called out and there’s no telling what those stupid bastards will do. They’re no friends to beggars like us and they won’t be bribed like the police. We must be finished and on our way by first light. You’ve got your orders and they’re good ones. The back door is still barred so go and open it, we’ve carts out there, too. Don’t neglect the cellar – it’s full of stock, the prize pickings – and don’t forget to bring the ladder either. And drive out those dogs.’

  ‘Look, there’s another woman, up there,’ cried Bigot.

  Carla told herself not to do so but had already lifted her head. Symonne peered down from the shattered window of the parlour. Their eyes met.

  ‘Can we spoil her before we kill her?’ asked Papin.

  Carla looked away.

  ‘She’s rich and she’s tasty, with fine fat teats and a crack in her arse that could strangle a live eel,’ said Grymonde. ‘I dare say she’ll spill a river of tears to soften your tender young hearts, but be not tender. Your mothers and sisters scrubbed her floors and emptied her pisspot, and she never even cared to learn their names, for when do her kind ever? Show her what her fine floors look like when you’re down on your knees. And the inside of her pisspot, too.’

  Carla heard a sob at her shoulder. She turned to pull Antoinette close.

  ‘Antoinette, kneel here beside me and put your head in my lap. Feel the baby. Hum a lullaby for him, but very softly.’

  ‘Can we kill all the other Huguenots, chief?’

  ‘The King himself decreed it. The one in the Louvre.’

  ‘Chief? Are the Huguenots as bad as the Philistines?’

  ‘They are worse than Philistines. Of them Samson killed ten thousand with the jawbone of an ass – heaps upon heaps, we are told – and he is reckoned a hero for the deed. So unsheathe thy knives with gladness, and go and do likewise for Charles.’

  The tatterdemalions cheered and charged into the Hôtel D’Aubray.

  Carla closed her eyes and put her hands over Antoinette’s ears and braced herself. Violent screams, from the killers no less than their victims, echoed in gusts from the shattered house. She heard the terror and pain of Martin. Of Charité. Lucien died last. The cries of the women intermingled, and continued, in a single unbroken scream. The strange odour filled her head and Carla opened her eyes.

  Grymonde crouched in front of her, his face a hand’s breadth from hers, his granitic features lost in the darkness but for the gleam of his eyes and mouthful of widely spaced teeth.

  ‘Is the wine good, my lady?’

  ‘I have not tasted it.’

  Inside the house, one woman stopped screaming. The other – Carla knew it was Symonne – didn’t stop. Antoinette knew, too. Her body shook as she hummed.

  Grymonde put a hand on Antoinette’s head. He stroked her hair. Carla resisted an urge to strike his hand away. The girl’s lullaby turned to whimpers.

  ‘You’d have me believe this Huguenot is your daughter.’

  ‘No. I would have you make your boys believe it.’

  ‘You set Joco against me.’

  ‘He wanted to kill me. And you were willing. Thank you.’

  ‘Should I have killed him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Grymonde scraped an enormous thumb down his cheek.

  Symonne’s screams subsided into breathless grunts, muffled by obscene outbursts, laughter, and the squabbling of her defilers.

  Grymonde’s enormous head tilted in thought, then righted itself.

  ‘You may keep your “daughter”. But tell me no more lies.’

  ‘I have told you no lies, nor will I.’

  ‘Then pull no more strings for I am no puppet. Ask me for nothing more.’

  ‘You know I must ask for more. I believe you will help me.’

  ‘Why? Have I lacked for villainy?’

  Carla remembered an aphorism that Mattias sometimes quoted, which he had learned from Sabato Svi.

  ‘The Jews say, In the place where there are no men, be a man.’

  ‘You quote the Jews at me?’

  ‘Samson was a Jew, and so was Christ, though I will place no reliance on your fealty to Him. You have proved yourself a villain. I dare you to prove yourself a man.’

  For a moment Grymonde was still.
His eyes shone into hers from beneath his bone-cragged brow. His black curls shone. He was the Infant of Paris, of its streets, its logic, its cruelty, much as an owl is of the forest. He glanced beneath the chair. He ducked his head. He reached out his hand and withdrew it.

  ‘The bag of your waters has burst.’

  Grymonde rubbed his thumb against his fingers and examined them.

  ‘The waters are clean. A good beginning.’

  For a man to make such observations startled her. She did not dwell on it.

  The throes of her labour had begun.

  ‘Will you take me to the Temple of the Hospitallers?’

  ‘Those monks know nothing of women. I wouldn’t let them calve a cow.’

  ‘Then please, just leave us to find our way. For my child’s sake.’

  ‘For your child’s sake, and yours, I will take you to Cockaigne.’

  ‘Where is this land of plenty?’

  ‘You’ve heard tell of the Yards?’

  The Yards were dens of criminals and beggars, so notorious for bloodshed and worse that they remained inviolate to all but their own. Carla nodded.

  ‘Cockaigne is my yard.’

  Carla felt the baby move inside her as her womb seized them both with a tremendous convulsion. It came in a rising wave, rolling downwards, its strength more astounding than the pain. Antoinette recoiled and retreated behind the chair. Carla took a deep breath and made no sound.

  Grymonde took her hand in his and squeezed, with a gentleness that should have been beyond him. She squeezed back with all her might. She clasped her other hand around his knuckles. The throng lasted for what seemed a long time. It waned, but not entirely. Her abdomen remained more tightly knotted than ever.

  She pulled her hands from Grymonde’s, confused by the unwanted intimacy of the moment just past. Confused because she had appreciated his grip. In his face she saw no lust, only an amused concern, as if his confidence in her were as firm as that he placed in himself. Though her mind rebelled, on instinct she knew she should trust him; not because she had no choice, but because the choice was a good one.

  ‘My child and I place our faith in you, and in your protection.’

  From the Hôtel D’Aubray came a fresh cycle of appalled screams.

  ‘Here, this will give you strength.’

  Grymonde offered her the cup of wine. She took a sip.

  ‘I don’t know how far I can walk like this.’

  ‘Walk?’

  He laughed and showed the great gaps between his teeth.

  ‘What manner of man do you think I am?’

  CHAPTER NINE

  Clementine

  ‘I TOLD COSSEINS that I refuse to treat your wounded,’ said Ambroise Paré. ‘As he knows, I am obliged to take orders from no one but the King.’

  Tannhauser laid Orlandu on the bed. The carpet was bogged with blood but the sheets were clean. He pointed to one of the lamps.

  ‘Juste, the light.’

  Juste held the lamp over the bed. Orlandu had remained under the opium throughout all that had happened. His chest still rose and fell.

  ‘He’s alive and he’s young,’ said Tannhauser. ‘Plenty have survived worse.’

  ‘Did you not hear me, sir?’

  Tannhauser turned towards Paré. The great man stood at the rear of the room near an open door leading to a staircase, as if the fantasy of escape gave him some comfort. He was bearded, of distinguished good looks, and in his early sixties. Tonight he looked much older. While his posture mimed defiance, his eyes were sickened and fearful.

  ‘Forgive my manners, Master Paré, and allow me to put the blame on these dire events. I am Mattias Tannhauser and I stand before you with the highest respect. In truth, with awe. As you see, I am a Knight of the Hospital of Malta, and among that noble crew your fame as a surgeon has no equal. During the siege, the application of your methods saved many a life and I often heard your name invoked. I invoked it myself, to my friend Jurien de Lyon.’

  ‘You knew Jurien?’

  ‘Knew him and saw him die. He was still working at the slab when the Turks cut his hands off and beheaded him.’

  Paré’s pride, at first flattered, was now stung.

  Tannhauser said, ‘In bloody times, it’s no easy thing to go on. Yet we must.’

  Paré walked over to the bed, pulling a pair of spectacles from inside his sleeve.

  ‘I have spent my life in bloody times, in bloody tents, on bloody fields. Nor am I new to treachery as policy. But on this scale? Guise has gone too far. The King will have his head. His Majesty sat by this very bed and wept over the Admiral’s wounds. Wept with pity and rage, and swore to see justice done. Now they say all this is done by the King’s command.’

  ‘I’m not privy to the King’s councils, but I’m certain it is only by the King’s command that you are still alive.’

  While Paré absorbed the implications of this, he donned his glasses and his hands examined Orlandu as if they had a life of their own. Pulses, fingertips, the nodes in his neck, the texture of his skin, the condition of his tongue. He bent forward to sniff his breath.

  ‘Bring the lamp closer,’ he said to Juste.

  He peeled back Orlandu’s eyelids.

  Tannhauser clapped Juste on the back. ‘It’s thanks to me this young lion is still here. You and he may be the only living Huguenots in this quartier. Is that not so, Juste?’

  ‘Yes, sire. I should have been murdered in the palace with the rest.’

  Paré looked up. ‘They’re killing our brethren in the Louvre, too?’

  ‘Sire, I believe they are killed already.’

  ‘They were herded into the courtyard for the sport of the archers,’ said Tannhauser. ‘The royal family watched from the Queen’s terrace, as if it were a masque.’

  Paré closed his eyes. Tannhauser feared he might faint.

  ‘They consorted with snakes,’ said Tannhauser. ‘They got bitten.’

  Paré looked at him. Perhaps the surgeon read in his face the brute and knowing callousness that this world demanded of its survivors. If so, it was a skill that Paré had mastered long ago, albeit against his every deepest instinct. He nodded.

  ‘You are right. We must go on. When was this man last given opium?’

  ‘More than ten hours ago.’

  ‘And still so insensible?’ Paré opened a case of instruments. ‘He must be a strong lad to survive the dose he was given.’

  ‘Orlandu has an unusual pedigree, reckless on one side, fanatical on the other, and stubborn on both. He is my son, though not by blood.’

  ‘Chevalier, you can better assist me from the far side of the bed. Juste, you stay as you are. The lamp will get hot, so use that towel.’

  With tweezers and scissors, Paré began to cut open and tease apart the foul dressing congealed around Orlandu’s upper arm, and which was now twisted and compacted by the rigours of his journey. Tannhauser circled the bed.

  ‘This bandage has baked the wound like a suet pudding,’ said Paré. ‘Nature alone would have served him a lot better. There’s a bullet in his arm along with a gill of pus.’

  ‘I thought to lance it myself but had no dressing. The Hospitallers, after your writings, use egg yolk, Venice turpentine and oil of roses.’

  ‘That concoction I devised for fresh wounds. When infection is established, as here, Ægyptiacum attenuated with wine and eau-de-vie is more effective.’

  ‘Of course, of course.’ Tannhauser dug into his memory. ‘Verdigris and honey?’

  ‘There are surgeons in Paris who know less about their art than you do, or than you seem to, and yet, if I may say so, I would not have made you for a surgeon on first sight.’

  ‘I’m a soldier and a killer of men, for preference with blades, for they’re more certain, to which end I’ve made a primitive study of Anatomy. It also helps to know a thing or two about how to treat wounds as well as to inflict them. To that end I also have dabbled in the sciences of Alchemy and Natural M
agick.’

  The smell of putrefaction arose as Tannhauser pulled away the sodden bandages. The linen clung to the skin and the skin started to tear like the peel of an overripe apricot.

  ‘Stop. If he’s not to lose the arm, we will have to soak the bandages off. With a decoction of black wine mixed with oxycrate, and warmed over the lamp flame.’

  ‘Excellent,’ concurred Tannhauser. ‘Marvellous.’

  ‘He may lose the arm in any event.’

  ‘Or his life. Can you say how old the wound is?’

  ‘A day and a half, perhaps more.’

  Paré opened a portable chest crammed with drawers, pill boxes, powders, bottles and vials, and prepared his decoction in a glass retort.

  ‘Juste, put the lamp back on the table and hold this retort over the flame. Your hand is steadier than mine. Slowly swill the decoction so that it heats evenly. When you see the vapour start to rise from the surface, pour it into this dish.’

  Juste took the glass receptacle and did as asked. His concentration was such that for the first time since Tannhauser had met him, the cares seem to melt from his face.

  ‘You would make a fine assistant,’ said Paré.

  ‘Thank you, sire.’

  ‘My last assistant was soon to take his Batchelor’s degree. He was stabbed in the back, there on the stairs to the garret, not an hour ago. Teligny and the others got as far as the roof before they were shot down.’

  ‘I am sorry, sire,’ said Juste. ‘A surgeon’s assistant, more than most men, should be spared so cruel an end. I will pray for him.’

  ‘What part of Poland do you hail from?’ asked Paré. ‘The Lesser? Or the North?’

  ‘The Lesser. Near Krakow.’

  Tannhauser, who had been enjoying an unearned pride in Juste’s intelligence and bearing, was taken aback. He felt somewhat oafish. Paré noticed.