Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris

by Tim Willocks

  ‘I’m no nose.’

  ‘Even so, you’ve got one, and this has naught to do with your lot. This man’s a Chevalier of Saint John. A big man, white cross on his chest, bold as you please. He killed three Huguenots, in a duel yesterday evening.’

  ‘Is that why he’s wanted?’

  ‘Why would that give warrant? The Châtelet can’t arrest one of the Religion like some street thief. They’d need the Parlement, the King, maybe the Pope in Rome.’

  ‘The Religion?’

  ‘The Knights of Saint John. A law unto themselves. Everyone lets them be. Anyway, we weren’t told he’s wanted for a crime, just that his whereabouts are sought.’

  ‘Who seeks him?’

  ‘I don’t know, and neither did the man who told me, nor whoever told him, and so on, unto who knows where or who? He is needed for some weighty matter of high urgency. Who knows, perhaps the chevalier has a big cock and the Duc d’Anjou is feeling penitent.’

  ‘I’ll keep an ear open, what’s his name?’

  ‘Mattias Tannhauser.’

  Grymonde twisted his lips as if the name meant nothing. One advantage of his face was that any expression he cared to make was so extreme it served to mask whatever he was thinking. What he thought was that the name didn’t mean much; but more than nothing. His gut told him it meant much more.

  ‘Anything else to mark this man out?’

  Rody squinted skyward to rack his brain and Grymonde was relieved. Rody swam like an eel in a sea of lies, as did they all, but had he wanted to deceive he’d have tried a little harder than that. It meant that Rody knew of no connection between the woman he had seen that morning in Grymonde’s cart and Mattias Tannhauser. Rody shook his head.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So the big cock isn’t a certainty.’

  ‘Only in my wife’s dreams.’

  ‘I’m off. You can tell your wife Father Robert pays in gold.’

  ‘Why would I want to tell her that?’

  Grymonde stopped at the Fontaine des Innocents and washed his boots under the spouts. There might well be no connection, but Mattias was hardly a popular name; except, Grymonde presumed, among Saxons. The lead weight still lay in his gut. He loved the woman, so the choice was simple. He could act upon the sentiment; or he could not. He reminded himself to change his shirt before he went to the birthing room. Whether the Saxon had a big cock or not, it could not be denied that it worked.

  Grymonde glanced at the sun, still hot and high but advanced in its decline to the west. He’d lost the run of time. He pressed on to Cockaigne.

  Tannhauser would be looking for his wife; he wouldn’t find her. Others might, once they found out she was still alive; and find out they would, if they hadn’t already. He muttered random of his thoughts out loud in the hope of making more sense of them.

  ‘A murder isn’t a ribbon for your sweetheart. Nobody buys one on a whim.’

  The risk. The expense. The courage. The crime was cowardly, but the idea alone would turn most guts to pisswater. And not just a murder but a plot. Plotting took practice, though there was plenty being had. This wasn’t the buyer’s first purchase on the murder market. He thought of the Louvre.

  ‘Bastards.’

  Why were the Châtelet looking for Mattias Tannhauser? To tell him, help him? Warn him, protect him? Perhaps the same malice that had paid Grymonde to kill Carla was reaching out for Tannhauser, too. Who would want to kill either of them and why? In a life spent with miscreants high and low, Grymonde had never met anyone more unlikely to provoke murderous hatred than Carla. Then again, murder solved a wide range of problems. On a day that the royal family had painted their own palace with blood – the blood of wedding guests, relatives and lifelong friends – anything was possible.

  ‘The babe,’ said Grymonde.

  Was the babe the reason?

  Was Tannhauser the secret villain?

  ‘He wouldn’t be the first husband to rid himself of a wife.’

  Who knew how long Tannhauser had been in Paris?

  Grymonde swatted grease and sweat from his eyes.

  His brain hurt.

  This was why it didn’t do to ask questions. Or break a contract.

  He stopped to piss. The sergents wouldn’t come into the Yards; the price now and later would be too high. They didn’t need to. The Yards appeared as a unity to outsiders, but like much of the world it was patchwork sewn together with envy and spite. Grymonde was not short of rivals and they could be hired as easily as he had been, and probably cheaper. It was a better time than most to fight a gang war; but not for him.

  He walked on.

  He shouldn’t have killed Bigot.

  The entire city had gone from celebration to bloody chaos in less than two days.

  Events could move swiftly.

  He had to get sly.

  He quickened his stride.

  He had to get Carla out of Paris.

  On his return, Alice forbade him to mention the chevalier to Carla.

  The birth of the baby girl wiped the slate of his cares, at least for a while. Carla won his heart more completely than ever. He relied on his face to conceal the fact. He wondered if his mother knew.

  To see her work, to see her be, had lost none of its power to entrance him. She knew what he was. She refused to profit from his doings down to the loaves of bread she ate. She had taught him her way, but Grymonde had been unable to live it. And such was her way that she did not condemn him; as she had once told him, that was his burden to carry.

  Alice’s skill with labouring mothers and their babes, in joy, in grief, sometimes in horror, he had witnessed since boyhood. But the bond she had forged with Carla he had not seen before. He wondered what had passed between them. Their bond reignited his fears for Carla’s life.

  A horse and wagon could easily be had. Grymonde had gold, despite his rash donation to the priest. The Saint-Denis gate was close. The customs officers made half their income in bribes. They could leave just before the cattle and sheep came in. The plan eased his mind.

  He told Carla he believed Mattias was in Paris.

  Carla was exhausted by her throes and already under the sway of strong emotions. Whatever she felt about this news was swaddled among them, held in check by that rare composure which had roused him from the moment they had met. For a short time she said nothing and studied her sleeping babe. She looked at Grymonde.

  ‘Please, bring me pen and ink, and paper. I must write to him.’

  ‘Write? Write what? Besides, we have no such tools.’

  ‘When Mattias finds you, he will kill you. I’d rather he did not.’

  Grymonde’s dignity was piqued. He had formed a vague image of this husband as, well, the kind of gallant who might win a woman like Carla. A fine fellow, and no doubt brave to boot, but hardly one to chill Grymonde’s blood.

  ‘I’m touched by your fears for my safety. Mine are for some well-bred gentleman who is at large, and by all accounts lost, in the Devil’s sweatshop.’

  ‘In the senses you intend, Mattias is neither well bred nor a gentleman. In combat he is the equal of Altan Savas; I’ll not say “better” only out of respect for Altan’s memory. In every other art that war and survival might demand, Mattias has no equal at all.’

  Grymonde recalled the three Poles killed in a duel, a detail he had chosen not to dwell on. The Poles had a reputation for being hardy. He felt his lips purse.

  ‘I’ll take your word on his audacity. But finding this man is another matter.’

  ‘He would find you were you entombed in the hottest chasm of Hell.’

  The calm of her conviction unnerved him. Perhaps he could unnerve her.

  ‘I have a question that may offend you, but I have to ask it.’

  Carla nodded.

  ‘Is it possible that your husband wants you dead?’

  ‘No.’

  Grymonde said, ‘You may have to stake this child’s life on it.’

  ‘I wagered ever
ything I am on Mattias’s love a long time ago.’

  Alice gave Grymonde a look. ‘For once in your life take heed of someone else. Carla doesn’t want her man at your throat – where he’s more than well entitled to be – nor you at his.’

  ‘Mattias has never been in Paris before,’ said Carla. ‘While I believe he would find you, I equally believe that you might find him sooner. A letter from me could protect you both from injury.’

  Grymonde nodded, appeased by this tardy tribute to his own fighting prowess.

  Alice said, ‘Carla, let him take some word of mouth that could have come only from you. Something he’ll know could not have been wrung from you by force.’

  Carla looked at her baby; then into some inner distance.

  She turned to Grymonde.

  ‘Tell him: A new nightingale awaits your thorns.’

  ‘A new nightingale awaits his thorns?’ said Grymonde.

  ‘Yes. Just as you have it.’

  ‘A riddle.’ Grymonde shrugged his brows. ‘Let’s hope his wits are sharp.’

  ‘It’s your wits we’re worried about,’ said Alice. ‘You’ve got your duty clear, now go about it. And don’t be taken in by false shadows. The Juggler’s afoot.’

  ‘You’ve been at the cards.’

  ‘They’d have stood your curls on end.’

  ‘You’re right about the Juggler,’ he said. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘The Lunatic points the way out, if there is one. The edge is closer than you realise. Whatever you’re up to, you know a lot less than you think you do. And if you can’t know it all, it’s better to know nothing. Then you’ll see what’s right in front of you.’

  ‘More riddles.’

  ‘I know you. Don’t try to be too clever. Think with your stomach, not your head.’

  Grymonde looked at Carla for more material guidance.

  ‘What does this husband look like?’

  ‘Mattias is forty-four years old, two inches taller than you, and his hair is the colour of bronze. When he looks at you –’ in the same gesture he had used, Carla swept a hand across her features to indicate his own, ‘– this will not appall him. The other things I’ve said of him you will see in his eyes – which are blue.’

  ‘Good enough.’

  ‘How did you come to know he is in Paris?’

  ‘We’ve heard all we need to for now, love,’ said Alice. ‘What you most need is sleep.’

  Carla thought about this and nodded.

  ‘Can I bring you meat or drink?’ asked Grymonde

  Carla shook her head. Grymonde walked to the door.

  ‘Grymonde,’ said Carla. ‘Thank you. And good luck.’

  Grymonde nodded. ‘A new nightingale awaits his thorns.’

  In his room next door he reloaded his pistol and concealed two extra knives, one strapped to his left forearm, the other in his left boot. As he descended the stairs he saw the cards on the table. His gut told him to keep going. They weren’t his cards. But then, Alice had surely been questing on his part, and he already knew the better part of the spread, the Juggler and the Lunatic were in play. Which card was in first position?

  He went over and looked.

  The quester card was Anima Mundi.

  He was sure that was Carla.

  Her spread hit him in the throat.

  The Judgement. The Fire. Death.

  Grymonde headed south for the Blind Piper.

  ‘Do you know,’ said Paul, ‘how much money is waiting to be made out of shit?’

  In his way, Pope Paul was no less grotesque in appearance than Grymonde. He dressed in a purple robe of fine spun silk, which was drenched in equal measure with perfume and sweat. He must have weighed thirty stones and his fat made his arms bulge like sections of colon from a newly butchered pig. More fat bulged from beneath his armpits in rolls of increasing curvature, and his belly draped his thighs – each large enough to bear a saddle – in a wide, obscene apron. On his belly sat enormous splayed teats. His jowls spilled onto his chest and shoulders. Sunk into the jowls was a head of normal dimensions, but which seemed tiny in relation to the monstrous corpus beneath it. He must have been over fifty, but fat stretched his features into a youthful sheen. He was largely bald; the remainder of his hair was bunched in lank coils over his ears.

  Grymonde waited for the performance to play out.

  ‘It’s all in the numbers,’ continued Paul.

  ‘And you’re a numbers man.’

  ‘Numbers alone hold sway above the flux. Numbers is the future. So let me show you how to arrive at a big one. The city will soon be buried in shit, as we all know, so the Bureau de Ville is going to start paying for its removal. Out there in the wilderness, farmers will cough up more cash to spread it on their crops. Let’s be parsimonious and say we clear just one white franc per wagonload. Who’d move all that shit for a franc? A good living for some, but for such as we? But hear the numbers. A scholar – don’t ask me how he did it – has reckoned that in one single day enough shit to fill a wagon will be shat by three hundred people. Again, let’s not be greedy. For the city as a whole, let’s call it eight hundred, no, halve it, four hundred wagonloads a day. Knock off feast days, Holy Days, plague days, and call it three hundred days a year. Do you have any idea how many francs that would amount to?’

  ‘Enough to keep you in wine and victuals for a week.’

  Paul laughed and wobbled. He reclined on a large couch, which was underpinned with blocks of timber and upholstered in rough-napped silver plush, now much the worse for a multitude of rancid stains. At either end of the couch stood one of the stable of muscular brutes that Paul kept on hand, in principle as bodyguards, in practice to enable him to get to his feet, get out of bed, get into and out of his robes, and to tend all the other duties required for the care of what was, in effect, a gigantic baby.

  In this their size and strength were vital; but they also served to lend Paul’s court an intimidating air; at least for some. Rowdiness and violence were almost unknown at the Piper; such pleasures could be reliably had in a hundred other dens. The Piper was a place of business and Paul was a rich man. He owned pieces of Les Halles, an abattoir, other taverns, and much else that few knew of. He could read a contract as well as any magistrate, in Latin, Italian, English and French. All the major villains of the Ville, on either side of what passed for the law, sooner or later found they had need of Paul, and their word kept the Piper peaceful. No one trusted Paul but everyone had to. His treacheries were uncommon and, without exception, unproven. Whoever he had betrayed, none had survived to exact revenge.

  The brighter of the two brutes raised a hand, to answer Paul’s question.

  ‘Maurice would have you think him a mathematician,’ said Paul. ‘But he’s heard this scheme before. That’s very dishonest of you, Maurice.’

  As Maurice lowered his hand, a refined voice piped up from behind Grymonde.

  ‘A hundred and twenty thousand francs per year.’

  The tavern was a long narrow room. The bar ran down one side in front of gantries of wine casks. Paul’s couch stood at the rear and Grymonde sat in one of the chairs reserved for audiences with the Pope. Grymonde turned and saw a short, vain fellow at a nearby table. He was expensively dressed, for the Piper, in bottle-green velvet. He had a white band tied round either arm and, lest the point be missed, a white cross was pinned to his hat. He regarded Grymonde with undisguised repugnance; and a certain spite.

  ‘Yet another mathematician.’ Paul’s lustreless eyes turned on the visitor. ‘And an eavesdropper into the bargain. I told you, monsieur, I’ll hear you when I’ve a mind to.’

  The visitor opened his mouth to say something petulant, then shut it. He turned back to his wine and played with some coins on the table.

  ‘Looks like they’re bagging the shit already, in little green velvet sacks,’ said Grymonde. He turned to Paul. ‘The only number that interests me is twenty in gold.’

  Paul wagged a hand and Maurice fille
d it with a purse.

  ‘I expected you sooner.’

  ‘Busy day, Paul.’

  ‘I hear it’s been right lively.’

  ‘You should have these lads knock a wall down and carry you out to see it.’

  Paul laughed and tossed the purse. The coins clinked in Grymonde’s fist.

  ‘What happened to the second woman?’ said Paul.

  ‘You mean the third. She’s in a cesspit, back of Saint-Martin. We took a little girl, too. Let’s say we adopted her, call it a whim, or the Hand of God, I don’t care, but adopted she will stay.’

  ‘You were paid to make an example.’

  ‘We left examples that would make you puke.’

  ‘The job was particular, Grymonde. Two particular women were specified. In further particular, a lady from the south.’

  ‘You specified kill them all and kill them all we did, all but for the little girl. And how were we to know which women were particular?’

  Grymonde sensed that this was a poor excuse. He kept talking.

  ‘My boys were entitled to their sport and time was pressing. The Turk was a fiend, which you neglected to tell us. We lost six and it was still cut fine. So no apologies. If you want the lady from the south I’ll show Maurice where to find her. He can fish her out of the cesspit and drag her back here.’

  Maurice shuffled with dread. Paul studied Grymonde at length.

  ‘I can’t afford to be at odds with you, Paul,’ conceded Grymonde. ‘I’ll refund five écus d’or, not more. For that you could pay this little green turd to get the body.’

  ‘It’s not my money,’ said Paul. ‘It’s them as spent it won’t get what they wanted.’

  ‘Who’s to tell ’em? As to a show, Hellfire, no one’s counting bodies today. You yourself could parade the streets naked and no would notice.’

  ‘Fair point. And I can’t afford to be at odds with the mighty Infant. The day we hang will fetch the biggest crowds the Place de Grève as ever seen, and we can’t deny them that.’

  Paul smiled and Grymonde grinned. He felt he’d brazened it well.

  ‘I’ve a morsel or two you might savour,’ said Grymonde. ‘Fresh to me at least.’