Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris

by Tim Willocks

  ‘I will burn this house down with you and your sister roped face-to-face inside it.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Magdalene

  ESTELLE AWOKE IN stifling gloom and saw rows of human skulls staring from the shadows. They didn’t upset her; she’d seen them too many times before; and compared to what she’d seen in her dreams they gave her comfort. At least they weren’t moving. Her other comfort, her rats, had scattered and gone, scared off by the gravedigger who had shaken her awake. She knew him, too, a kindly sort. His mates would have woken her with a kick. They lived knee-deep in the huge death pits outside, and were a harsh breed. Her back was to the wall by the charnel house doorway. She stumbled out into blinding sunlight without speaking.

  She rubbed her eyes as she tottered to the gate of the Cemetery of the Innocents. Her feet were heavy, the sleep still clinging to her bones and the insides of her head.

  She’d been up all night. Her face ached from Gobbo’s slap. She felt more exhausted now than she had when she’d fallen asleep, with the rats in her lap, watching their black eyes and quivering noses. Everywhere, they took her for one of their own. One had put its mouth on her nipple for a moment, which always pleased her. She had never seen meanness in the eyes of a rat. She didn’t believe they had any meanness in them. Perhaps that was why people hated them. She knew she had a lot of meanness in her. She’d tried hard to put it there; to put in more and more and more. As far as she could tell, that was what people did to rise. The meaner you were, the higher you rose.

  She was starving. She was naked. But starving, naked children were common enough, and she didn’t expect anyone would care.

  She wandered around Les Halles with no destination in mind. She passed the folly of Saint-Eustache. They’d started to build it before she was born – Grymonde said before even he had been born – but it had never changed: a gigantic slab the size of a field, and a big arch without any walls, or only bits of walls, started but not finished. People used it as a jakes and for rutting, like they did the charnel houses, and for beatings and slashings, and other mean things. Grymonde said they couldn’t pay for the stones to finish it. He said they’d spent all their gold on the wars instead. Enough gold to turn the whole land into Cockaigne, he said.

  Grymonde had carried her on his shoulders down every street and every alley, and through all the galleries of Les Halles, and through all the markets and wharves, and past all the palaces and fountains and churches, and through fields where horses grazed, and even across the bridges to the City and the University, and everywhere, everywhere, whenever they had met, he had carried her on his shoulders, and he had never tired.

  They would meet secretly, like spies, at some rendezvous, and she would run to him and turn her back to him and she’d hear him laugh, the deepest and most beautiful sound she ever heard, and she’d feel his enormous hands encircle her waist entire, and then: ecstasy. Her breath would be stolen and she’d scream with excitement and she would shoot up into the air, and her head would spin and the whole world would change and then she’d drop, and her stomach would jump as she landed on his shoulders, her hands grabbing onto his curly hair lest she fall.

  The warmth and hardness of his muscles, his neck, his chest had filled her up inside. The long drop to the ground thrilled her. The fact that she, Estelle, herself, was the tallest creature in Paris made her giddy with triumph and pride, for it never felt as if she were riding him, as folk rode horses. She flew on Grymonde’s shoulders. She swooped. She soared. She gave these flights a good deal of thought. No bird she had ever seen or heard of could have carried her, even though she was small. Lying by the hearthstone one night, she realised that only a dragon could.

  Grymonde was her dragon.

  When she told him this, he laughed his roaring laugh, and his delight made her hair feel as if it were streaming in the wind.

  ‘I will be your dragon, La Rossa, if you will be my wings and my fire.’

  Estelle loved the idea of being his wings; but she knew his fire was his own.

  This conviction was only reinforced by the fact that Grymonde inspired fear and respect wherever he trod. No crowd packed for hours at the Place de Grève, waiting to watch for the executions, was too jealous to part like a field of barley when Grymonde and Estelle flew through it. He would nod at the gallows and shout up to her past his ear: ‘One day you will see me ride that pale mare. And when you do, I want you to be proud of me.’

  She had never believed him.

  Dragons were killed in fables, it was true, but they never hanged.

  The first time she had ever seen him had been at the fish market in Les Halles, with her mother, Typhaine. Typhaine, as always, had lingered over the pale red crayfish, as always without buying, before cursing and moving on to the eel. A huge hand had shovelled up three of the crayfish at once, and another had tossed a coin at the fishmonger, then the crayfish fell with a clatter into Typhaine’s basket.

  Estelle had stared up with awe at the giant whose hands had performed this deed. She had found him, at once, magnificent. She did not find his face ugly, though she came to understand that others did. She only saw that his face was more. More than any other face she had ever seen. More jaw, more brow, more cheekbones, more lips. He had looked down at her and grinned, with more grin than she had ever seen. He had great gaps between his teeth, which was common enough, except that only one of his teeth was missing. She could tell, because that gap, near one edge of his mouth, was much bigger than the rest. His nose was like that of the lions carved on the fountain. His eyes were the colour of gold. He winked and she grinned back.

  Typhaine had uttered a stream of curses at the giant and he had backed away without a word. As Typhaine dragged Estelle from the fish market, Estelle looked back, but the giant had gone. When she’d asked her mother who he was, her mother had told her he was a monster and she should forget him. Typhaine ate all three crayfish by herself, except for one claw, which she gave to Estelle.

  Typhaine, and the brothers she lived with, Joco and Gobbo, taught Estelle to be a cutpurse and a burglar. Sometimes she wondered if the brothers wanted her to get caught and hanged; but she was good at it. She invented her own tricks.

  One morning in Les Halles, just outside the cheese market, she picked a woman in fine black silk with a covered wicker basket over one arm. Concealed behind a clever pleat in her skirt, Estelle saw the bulge of a purse tied about her waist. She drew her knife from the sheath sewn into her belt and dashed into the crowd as if to pass the woman by. She grabbed the hem of the woman’s skirts and circled her like a greyhound and trussed her tight. She shouldered her in the thighs and as the woman toppled backwards into the muck, Estelle slid her left hand into the pleat and seized the purse. She flashed the knife and the woman covered her face, and in a second flash the purse was severed free.

  Estelle ducked the grasp of a do-gooder and with a third flash she cut him across the palm and felt the bones. She hooked the fallen basket over her arm and ran through the usual to-do for the alley. Shouts, gawking faces. A fat man blocked the narrow passage ahead. She feinted left and twisted right and felt his fingers in her hair. Fast as a dog bites she punctured him twice and slashed the hand and again felt the scrape of bones. He let go of her hair but grabbed the basket.

  Estelle let him take it and ran with the purse. She ran like a rat. Her heart was pounding and she could hardly breathe, but her eyes were everywhere – looking for escapes – and her feet were ready to take her in any direction.

  Two more men loomed before her, one behind the other.

  As she stopped to twist and turn, the first man grunted and arched backwards.

  As he fell, she saw that the second man was Grymonde.

  ‘Run, La Rossa, run. Behind me. To the cemetery.’

  So had begun her flights with the dragon. Grymonde had told her to stop the cutpurse trade, for at best she would end up in a slave shop for incorrigibles far from Paris. He promised to give her enoug
h booty to keep Typhaine happy, and he did. He made her promise never to tell Typhaine where the booty came from. She didn’t see him as often as she wanted to; but he was her light. The Grande Truanderie was home to villains enough, but the Yards were feared there. At least the Truanderie could be found. There was nothing to be found in the Yards but a deeper pit of poorness and a better chance of dying, from all sorts of things; yet for Estelle, Cockaigne had the allure of a magic kingdom in a tale. Then someone told her that Cockaigne was a magic kingdom in a tale, and this made its allure all the greater.

  When she followed Grymonde from Les Halles, north through the Yards to Cockaigne, he chided her, and always sent her back to Typhaine. But more and more he let her hang around his doings, though he never took her into his house. She had thought Typhaine had known nothing of her secret life; until just last week, when she had persuaded Estelle to ask Grymonde to give Joco and Gobbo some work.

  ‘If he’s such a true friend of yours, why wouldn’t he?’ said Typhaine. ‘It’s money in your pocket, too. Food in your belly. Clothes on your back. And he’s got something coming up. Ask him. If he wants to say no, he will.’

  Estelle had asked Grymonde.

  ‘So Typhaine won’t stop you from seeing me?’

  ‘She couldn’t stop me if she tried.’

  Grymonde had talked to Joco and Gobbo. He had given them the job.

  Last night, Estelle had climbed the roof and gone down the chimney.

  Grymonde hadn’t really wanted her to, and neither had Estelle. It was Joco’s idea, though Estelle knew it was a good one. Grymonde had given her the choice, and because she knew it would help her dragon, she had said yes.

  Now she was cast out, because of the lady from the south.

  Carla.

  Estelle didn’t like to cry. She had learned not to, unless it served some purpose, which was rare. But as she circled Les Halles and drifted north up the Rue Saint-Denis she cried. She heard other cries – screams – echoing down the streets, but she didn’t care. Here and there she saw piles of dead bodies, and bands of men with axes and spears, but she didn’t care, and they paid her no mind.

  Carla had not been mean; even though Estelle had been mean to her. Carla had been tender. She had told Grymonde she was brave. And if not for Carla, Altan would have killed her, she knew. Yet, she also knew that, somehow, Carla had caused her banishment.

  She couldn’t hate Grymonde. Grymonde was the king, so he had to be mean; sometimes, even to her, she supposed; even though he had never been mean to her before. She had failed, it was true. But if bravery wasn’t enough, what was? She didn’t have anything else to give. She thought about it. That was true, too. She had nothing at all.

  What tormented her most was that Grymonde had taken Carla inside his house.

  Why?

  He’d never taken Estelle inside his house. Never, ever.

  Estelle ran out of tears. Her belly ached and she felt dizzy.

  She went home.

  Typhaine and the brothers rented two rooms on the second floor. The brothers hadn’t always been around, but this was at least the third summer Estelle could remember having to bear their rages and their smell. As she got to the door she heard her mother and Joco bickering. Estelle knew how to sleep through bickering.

  ‘They cut his cock and balls off,’ whined Joco.

  ‘That’s no loss to the world and neither is he,’ said Typhaine. ‘I should’ve got rid of you bastards a long time ago. Look at me. A count once had me in his bed, and more than once, too.’

  ‘Don’t we know it? The whole street knows it. Christ!’

  Joco broke off in a prolonged groan. Estelle walked in and saw Joco gasping on the bed. His back was arched rigid and his hands clawed the mattress in agony. Uttering a series of short whimpers he lowered himself back down as if onto broken glass. He took shallow, timid, breaths, as if each plunged a knife in him.

  ‘He must have broken five ribs, on either side. Or broken me back.’

  ‘And you didn’t get a sou? Arsehole. Did they cut your balls off, too?’

  ‘They couldn’t, could they, ’cause you got there first.’

  ‘That poxed bastard did it to flout me. No, he’s too stupid to think that far.’

  ‘I need to piss. Oh Jesus!’

  Joco whimpered through another spasm.

  ‘Grymonde made Joco eat a dead dog,’ said Estelle.

  ‘Don’t you start, rat face. Typhaine, pass me the pot.’

  ‘Get it yourself.’

  ‘I can’t even sit up. Do you want me to piss the bed? Give me that jar.’

  Typhaine emptied wine from the jar into two bowls and dropped it on Joco’s stomach. While he fumbled with himself and moaned, she turned on Estelle.

  ‘And where’ve you been? I’ve been worried to death.’

  Estelle didn’t believe this for an instant. Typhaine was still slender, still very pretty; her dark red hair was still lush and wild. Estelle had once thought her beautiful; she didn’t know what had changed. Typhaine had often told her she was descended from Irish kings and Estelle believed it. Once, when giggling drunk, she’d told her that Estelle had royal French blood, too; but she’d never said it again, and Estelle doubted it.

  ‘And where’s your smock? Christ, put something on.’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Estelle.

  ‘There’s bread and cold soup in the kitchen. It’s too hot for a fire.’

  Estelle ate while Typhaine taunted Joco. She found her eyes closing between spoonfuls. There was an urgent knock on the front door. It roused her and she ate more soup. A third voice joined the squabble and Estelle started to feel sick.

  She knew the voice.

  Nasal, high-pitched, not like most people’s.

  Petit Christian.

  She felt afraid. She went to the doorway and listened. He was asking questions about the raid on the Hôtel last night. How did he know about that? He was a toady, the kind who knew lots of things about lots of things. She was glad he was talking about the raid and not about her.

  One night last winter, Typhaine and Joco had taken her to Petit Christian and told her to go with him. He’d taken her to a grand hôtel near the Louvre, far bigger and more splendid than the one they had attacked that morning. When she went inside, it was a place such as she’d never imagined existed. Petit Christian and a woman had bathed her and washed her hair with perfume and dressed her in a beautiful blue gown, such as she’d never worn, with a gold star on the front, which they told her was the Star of Bethlehem. Then they’d told her that she was to play a game, in which she would pretend to be Mary Magdalene. Estelle knew the name, but not what it meant, and they told her the Magdalene was a special friend of Jesus.

  They took her into a huge bedroom. In the bedroom was a man in a long white robe and wearing a crown of thorns, though the thorns weren’t real, in case they might hurt his head. He looked like Jesus in some of the paintings in churches. He put his feet in a silver bowl of water, and they told Estelle to wash his feet with her hair.

  Estelle said no. He could wash his own feet.

  She didn’t remember the rest, though she sometimes had dreams. She had never told anyone. Typhaine had never asked what happened. Estelle sensed she knew. She could never tell Grymonde. They’d taken her to Christian a second time; but she’d run away from him and lived with the rats for three days.

  She heard Joco say: ‘They were all of them alive when I left, except the Turk, so what more can I tell you? Ask Estelle, she was still there.’

  Estelle was so scared she couldn’t move. Christian came to the doorway. He was all in green, like a toad. His face made her sicker than his voice. His smile was even worse.

  ‘How is our little Magdalene? Pretty as ever. Though a bath wouldn’t hurt.’

  Estelle retreated across the kitchen. She felt her belt for her knife, but she’d given it to Grymonde, so she wouldn’t stab herself going down the chimney. She took a carving knife from the sidebo
ard. Its hilt was so big she had to use both hands.

  ‘Put that down,’ said Typhaine. ‘He just wants to ask you about this morning. Tell him and he’ll buy both of us a new frock.’

  ‘I don’t want a new frock.’

  ‘She has sentiments for Grymonde,’ Typhaine explained to Christian.

  ‘I have only one question, my little hedgehog.’

  Christian was trying to charm her. Estelle’s stomach hurt.

  ‘I’m not a hedgehog. And I’m not a nose.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. No one likes a nose. But noses harm their friends, and this is a matter of helping your friends. Joco says there was a fine lady at the Hôtel D’Aubray, named Carla. Do you remember?’

  ‘Grymonde made Joco eat a dead dog.’

  ‘I’m sure he enjoyed it. But tell me, what happened to Carla after Joco left?’

  ‘I was sent away, too, and it wasn’t fair. I was brave. Even Carla said I was brave.’

  ‘Carla was right, you were very, very brave. Where was she?’

  ‘She was sitting in a chair in the street. Then I ran away, from the boys.’

  Christian pouted. He was frustrated.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’ asked Estelle.

  Christian studied her. Estelle squeezed the knife.

  ‘Carla is a special, sweet lady,’ said Christian. ‘The people who love her want to know what happened to her. They’re very worried for her.’

  ‘What people?’

  ‘Well, her husband for one. He’s a great chevalier, you know. He would pay a lot of gold to find her. He would pay even more to get her back. It’s called a ransom.’

  Estelle struggled. She didn’t like Carla being in Grymonde’s house. Wouldn’t Carla rather be in her own house, with the chevalier who loved her? Petit Christian did work for Les Messieurs. And Grymonde liked gold. It all made sense, yet her stomach still hurt her.

  ‘Would the chevalier give the gold to Grymonde?’

  ‘Of course he would, lots of gold, if Grymonde knew where she was. The chevalier would be happy, Carla would be happy and Grymonde would be happiest of all.’