Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris

by Tim Willocks

  ‘Flore it’s me. I’m coming in.’

  She opened the door and charged in. Flore and Juste were asleep in each other’s arms on the bed. They were both fully clothed. Pascale held her tongue. They looked at peace. They looked lovely. Pascale took some deep breaths. She was about to turn and leave them alone when she heard voices from the street. Rough voices, impatient.

  The window was open.

  As she walked over she heard Irène say something about Captain Garnier. Her voice was stern; but theirs were harsh. Irène mentioned Frogier. So did they. Pascale stopped short of the casement and peered down over the edge of the sill.

  At the front door stood three sergents. None was Frogier.

  Frogier had turned them in.

  They’d be killed like the rest.

  Pascale closed her eyes. Fear filled her chest. Her mind raced. Be clear. Be quick. She was quick. She knew she was. Her stomach convulsed. Her limbs felt like skins of water. She took more deep breaths. Make the fear into strength. Turn the wheel. A fighter’s power. But thinking it didn’t make it happen. She had to act. As Tannhauser would act. She had to decide.

  That was all.

  She could do it. She would do it. Because Tannhauser had believed she could do it. That’s why he had told her these things. He hadn’t told Flore. He hadn’t told Juste. He had told her, because he knew she was a fighter. Who in the world would know a fighter better than he?

  ‘I am a fighter.’

  Decide and do. Do anything.

  She ran to the bed and shook Flore awake and clamped a hand over her mouth. As Flore woke, so did Juste, mortified. He opened his mouth to utter some explanation or apology but Pascale shushed him. She kept her voice low, but she kept it fierce.

  ‘There are three sergents at the front door. We’re leaving by the back window.’

  Pascale ran back into her room, where the window was closed to block out the sound of the drunks across the river. She saw the saddle wallets and the holstered pistols. She saw the rifle propped against the wall. She took the rifle and lowered the hammer to the wheel and laid it on her bed. She wrapped her belt and dagger around her waist.

  Her limbs were not watery any more.

  ‘Stand up, now,’ she said.

  The twins obeyed.

  ‘I’m going to drop you from the window into the garden. It’s a game. First Marie, then Agnès. Stand by the window.’

  Pascale opened the window. The river was tinged red by the dying sun. On the other side, they were still throwing corpses into the water from the wharf. That’s why they need to be drunk, she thought. On this side, the banked quays of the Port Saint-Landry were deserted. The two moored barges were deserted, too. She looked down. The drop was further than she thought. She turned to the twins, who stood side by side. She took the first girl under the armpits.

  ‘Close your eyes until I say open them. Agnès, you watch to see how it’s done.’

  ‘I’m Agnès,’ said the girl Pascale already held. She closed her eyes.

  ‘Then you’ll go first, Agnès.’

  She sat Agnès on the sill. The girl was even lighter than she looked.

  ‘Tuck your legs up and swing around, outside. Good girl. Now turn over on your belly, I’ll hold you, don’t be frightened.’

  Agnès did as she was told without a murmur and didn’t open her eyes. Pascale was glad, yet her gut turned as she sensed why the girl was so unnaturally pliable.

  ‘Good. I’m going to hold you out of the window by your arms. Don’t be afraid.’

  She held Agnès over the sill by her upper arms and leaned out herself on tiptoes. She lowered the girl one arm at a time until she held her by both wrists.

  ‘Now open your eyes and look down. Can you see the ground?’

  ‘Yes. It’s a long way.’

  ‘Not really. If the funny man were there, you could stand on his shoulders. Ready? I’ll count to three and let go. One, two, three.’

  She let go. Agnès landed like a cat, her hands dipping to the ground, and stood up.

  Pascale turned and picked up Marie and sat her on the sill.

  ‘Close your eyes, Marie. Agnès did it easily.’

  Flore ran in. She was afraid, very afraid, but had resolved to be calm. She made Pascale remember their father, just before the militia had dragged him away.

  ‘Pascale, we think we should talk to them. They’re police, not militia –’

  ‘Take a pistol and give one to Juste. Lower the hammers.’

  ‘But they might only want to talk –’

  ‘If they come up the stairs, shoot them.’

  Marie had followed Agnès’s example without needing instructions. Pascale held her out of the window and worked her grasp down either arm to the wrists.

  ‘Pascale?’ said Juste.

  ‘Now open your eyes and look down. Are you ready?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Marie.

  Pascale let her drop and she landed as lightly as her twin had. Pascale pulled her head back in and grabbed the wallets. Powder and ball, but there would be no chance to reload. Opium and gold. Better the Mice give it to thieves than the police get it. There was more chance a villain would take pity on them.

  Juste stood in front of her.

  He was a good man. He was gentle. He was brave. He was the most beautiful. She understood. Perhaps he was right. But she was the fighter.

  She was in charge.

  ‘Pascale, think,’ urged Juste. ‘Tannhauser would talk to them.’

  ‘They’d be afraid of Tannhauser. Take a pistol.’

  ‘Listen, we could bribe them.’

  Pascale dropped the wallets into the garden and leaned out after them.

  ‘Marie, Agnès, take these and go and hide by the river. If you see a man come to this window, or the back door, run away. Go home. Do you have a home? Tybaut’s home?’

  The Mice nodded and picked up the wallets. They staggered across the garden.

  Pascale took a breath. She saw the not-far-distant dead wagons.

  She was right. Juste was wrong.

  ‘If we run they’ll come after us,’ said Juste.

  ‘Not if we shoot them.’

  ‘They’re sergents.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘We can’t kill all three.’

  ‘We have three guns,’ said Pascale. ‘And they think we’re children.’

  ‘We are children, aren’t we?’

  ‘Why is Irène trying to keep them out? They mean us harm.’

  ‘Then you and Flore go, and I’ll talk to them. At least I can delay them. Go.’

  Pascale started past him to take the rifle.

  Juste pushed her back. He grabbed Flore by her shoulders.

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  He hugged her and Flore choked. Juste pushed her towards Pascale.

  He walked to the door. Heavy footsteps echoed below over Irène’s protests.

  Pascale rushed to the holsters for a pistol.

  ‘Flore, take this, like Papa told us.’

  Flore ran through the door after Juste.

  Pascale reached for the rifle, which was ready to fire. In the gloom of the corridor a blur of motion and noise swept past the doorway, from right to left. Coarse oaths. Juste yelled as he stumbled backwards. A sergent pursued him, swinging an iron-bound cudgel overarm. Flore cried out from the corridor.

  Pascale couldn’t see what was happening.

  As she lifted the rifle, the sergent staggered back into view, crashed into the doorway, grabbed the jamb for balance. Juste had both hands around the sergent’s throat.

  Terror pounced.

  Pascale was stunned. It sprang from inside her pelvis and howled out of her eyeballs and shredded her entrails on the way. She swayed and dropped the rifle.

  Picture it. Picture it.

  The she-wolf had her. Pascale closed her eyes and saw her. For a single instant, the she-wolf waited for her. She was magnificent. She peeled back her lips. Slaver spille
d through her teeth. Her eyes were blue.

  Jump now and I might let you ride.

  Pascale drew her dagger and charged.

  She ran and ducked as the sergent cudgelled Juste on the shoulder and Juste reeled back. She saw only the sergent’s body, half-turned towards her, his left side closest. She drove the blade into the gap between his legs below the groin and pierced his inner right thigh and carved outwards with all her might, as if cutting through a wheel of hard cheese. She felt the edge scrape on bone. Blood spurted down her arm and she got out, she ran backwards. The swing of the cudgel missed her head by a foot or more.

  She realised why Tannhauser had told her to cut as if the flesh were a stale cheese. In practice, the flesh felt no more resistant than a boiled egg; but had he told her that, she would not have slashed with such strength.

  The sergent looked down at the waves of blood pulsing over his knees. She was amazed at the speed of it, the sheer liquid life of it, as if it had always yearned to be so free. The sergent looked at her. He took a step to the door and stopped and swayed. He tried to raise the cudgel and failed to get it as high as his chest before it fell from his fist. He seemed bewildered that his will now counted for so little. He leaned into the jamb like a drunkard.

  Pascale dashed over and stabbed him in the belly and pulled with both hands to slice him sideways. It was tougher than the leg. She screamed to give to herself more strength and she felt the tug and give on the edge of the blade as it arced downward. She dashed back out. The sergent slid to his knees.

  Sheathe the dagger. Sheathe the dagger.

  His bulk blocked the corridor and he turned his head towards the shouts of a second sergent trying to get past him. His head flopped. He folded backwards into his comrade’s legs.

  Pascale grabbed the rifle and fingered the trigger.

  The second sergent saw her as he started through the door. He was quick enough to spin and rush for the stairs. She charged for the door. As the sergent slithered down the stair Pascale levelled the rifle and shot him in the back. The recoil stunned her and a blast of flame blinded her in the same instant. She had held the butt tight against her hip with her elbow, and the rifle hurtled backwards from her grasp. The fingers of her right hand felt numb. The sound deafened her and smoke choked the stairwell. The rifle hit the floor behind her.

  She stumbled back into the bedroom, itself polluted, and pulled a pistol from its holster. Her ears rang. She heaved for breath. She felt sick with the firework smell; her legs were unsteady. She blinked and drove herself to focus on the hammer. Her right-hand fingers felt like thumbs, but didn’t seem broken. She lowered the hammer to the striking wheel. Pascale pictured the she-wolf. She was still between her thighs.

  Pascale decided to kill the third sergent.

  She dashed back to the door.

  She held the pistol in her left hand, supporting the barrel with her right. The smoke was still dense. She leaned against the wall with her right shoulder and started down the steps, the pistol held out before her, each step light and quick and steady. As she neared the bottom the smoke was lighter, swirling away into the house. She saw the hump of a body, unmoving. She heard muffled screaming. Not screams: shouts, as if from a distance.

  ‘He’s gone! He’s gone!’

  It was Irène. She was backed into a corner on the far side of the parlour. Pascale’s head stopped ringing. She looked at the front door. It was open. She stepped over the body and dashed out into the street. She saw a figure running west, or waddling. She didn’t think she could hit him from here. She couldn’t trust the recoil. Decide. Do.

  Pascale sprinted after him. She wanted to howl but the she-wolf between her legs was silent and she lengthened her stride to match her. She felt strong. She had never known a strength like it. She bore down on him. Her teeth clenched.

  She felt pure. She felt ecstasy.

  He didn’t hear her coming. She shoved the muzzle of the pistol into his back and before she could fire he turned to look over his shoulder and tripped to the ground. Pascale skipped around him and turned. He was scrambling onto his hands and knees. Cold steel was more certain. She skipped around him again and drew her dagger and laid the gun on the ground behind his feet. As he raised up on one knee and put a hand on his thigh to push, she stabbed him, in and out, in the armpit, and as he clenched she reached over his shoulder and braced the back of his head and sliced the right side of his neck as if it were cheese. Upwards and deep, behind the ear, as with Ebert, until she felt the scrape of the bone.

  She stepped back from the spray and shoved him forward.

  He quivered and flapped one arm, splashing in the wide black puddle that his blood made, and she took deep breaths as she watched him die. Don’t linger. She wiped her dagger on his back and felt the death in him. She sheathed the dagger. She loved her dagger. She needed to learn how to sharpen it. She looked about. They were almost at the edge of the market. The body was too easily seen. A stable. She grabbed the dead man’s wrists to drag him to the stable alley. He was too heavy. She squatted and found she could roll him over. Four rolls and he hit a mound of manure by the side of the road. Pascale felt dizzy and closed her eyes. The she-wolf had gone.

  She leaned over between her knees and vomited. She felt better. She wondered why she had been sick, for she felt no disgust. She felt glorious. She shook her head to clear it. She had needed a lot of spleen to do what she’d done, but she didn’t need so much now that it was. That was why she had puked. Her hearing had returned.

  It would soon be dark. They had to run.

  She recovered the pistol and ran to the house. She went back inside and saw the second body. She almost stopped herself from looking at it, but made herself not stop. This was her work. She ought to check it. The rifle ball had bored through the sergent’s upper back and somehow blown apart his jaw. It hung from his face like a piece of broken carpentry. They hadn’t come to talk. They had come to kill them. She wanted to spit on his body. Would Tannhauser? He wouldn’t waste the effort. And her mouth was dry.

  She looked at Irène. She let her see the bore of the pistol.

  Should she kill her, too?

  Irène saw it in her. She pointed at the door and spoke carefully.

  ‘I can’t tell anyone anything he can’t tell them.’

  ‘Who?’ said Pascale.

  ‘The one that got away.’

  ‘He didn’t get away. He’s dead.’

  Irène took a deep breath.

  ‘I tried to keep them out. I swear it. I told them –’

  ‘Bring us some food. In a sack. Be quick. If you leave, I’ll come after you.’

  Pascale locked back the hammer of the pistol and climbed the stairs.

  They had to run. Where could they run to? The Mice had a home. A room. A street. An alley. Scabs. Pimps. Whores. Let them try. Would Tannhauser find them there? Yes. She’d tell him. The smoke still swirled. She heard Juste crying. She wondered how badly he was hurt. Could he get through the window? They could use the door, but how soon would others get here? Sergents, militia.

  She saw why Juste was crying.

  He was on his hands and knees by Flore’s body, staring at her face.

  Pascale walked over. Flore was utterly still. Pascale could recognise that stillness now. There was no other stillness like it. A heaviness. A silence. She didn’t feel the anguish or shock that she felt she ought to. Perhaps the sound of her father screaming as he burned had drained her of such feelings for ever. They were all walking tombstones. At least Flore had died quickly. If they had captured them, they would have raped her, one after the other. It was better not to feel too much. The feelings didn’t achieve anything useful. They just made you weak.

  Juste turned his face up towards her. He was stricken.

  Pascale said, ‘Flore’s dead.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Pascale looked at Flore’s face. It was half-concealed by locks of bloody hair. She squatted down and put a hand to Flore’s
cheek. There was nothing inside her, just death. Pascale’s heart turned in her chest. She felt her jaw tremble and she clenched it. Flore was gone. She could feel sad later, if she was alive. She looked at Juste.

  ‘She’s dead.’

  Pascale remembered the melee, the sergent’s cudgel.

  ‘She should have taken the pistol when I told her to.’

  ‘What?’ said Juste.

  Juste stared at her. He had stopped crying. She stared back at him.

  ‘I’m in charge. If you don’t want to come with us, you don’t have to.’

  ‘I don’t want anything.’

  Pascale put the pistol on the floor and stood up.

  ‘Let’s put Flore on the bed. I’ll take her legs.’

  Flore was lighter than Pascale expected.

  ‘Flore was a beautiful sister to have. I was lucky.’

  They laid her on the bed and Juste took Flore’s hand and sat beside her. Pascale looked at the wound. There was a soggy depression in the left side of her head, behind the eye. The blood oozed from rips in her scalp.

  ‘Get the sheet from the other bed. Cover her up.’

  Pascale went to fetch the rifle. The corridor was awash with the blood of the first sergent she had killed. She took the rifle into the bedroom and wiped it on a pillow and propped it by the window. Juste hadn’t moved. Pascale stripped the sheet from the second bed and threw it on Juste’s lap. She returned the pistol to the saddle holster. She took the holsters to the window and leaned out.

  ‘Are you still there?’ she called.

  Agnès and Marie appeared from the dusk. They waved. Pascale waved back. She dropped the pistols to the garden. She got the rifle and lowered it from the window by the muzzle. Its heat surprised her. She dropped that, too.

  ‘Agnès, Marie, do you know how to get home from here? To Tybaut’s?’

  They nodded.