Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris

by Tim Willocks

  He followed Baro as he fled his own smoke and shot him in the right loin.

  He toed the stirrup and drew the string. He fitted the spare bolt.

  He ducked his head in and out of the room. Christian squirmed on the floor. A bald man wearing a collar of gold cockleshells sat behind a polished oak desk, both hands over his ears. No second guard. Only Baro, clinging onto a window sill. He checked the space behind the door. He stepped back to collect the bow, the quiver and the mace.

  He walked around Christian, who was coughing on vomit, and past the bald man, who sat as still as a bust of Nero at his polished oak desk. He stood the crossbow on its stirrup against the far wall, and the bow and the quiver by it. He swung the mace above his head from the back foot and clubbed the bleeding bodyguard through the nape. He felt a steel flange bite into the root of the upper spine and cranked the handle to split apart the bones. Sergent Baro dropped, his upper limbs quivering in a fit. Tannhauser turned.

  He was in a room with Marcel Le Tellier.

  Considering the trouble he had caused, the man was a disappointment.

  Tannhauser found nothing in the face to interest him. A certain intelligence, a certain vanity, a certain gravity, affected or acquired. Nothing he hadn’t seen before in a thousand such functionaries: those who had bartered their lives for an authority that as men they would never have owned. If there was a shadow of hatred in the eyes, it was bleached by utter disbelief even more than by fear. He did not meet Tannhauser’s gaze. His hand reached towards a cup of wine; then stopped. He seemed stunned that the citadel not merely of his hôtel but of his prestige had been so violently breached. He stared through the drifts of powder smoke at the gore that painted Tannhauser’s torso from throat to belt buckle.

  Tannhauser opened the window to vent the smoke. He stripped the smouldering match from the arquebus and smashed its lock with the mace and threw the match outside. He was three floors above the street. From this wing no view of the stockyard was to be had. Screams and jeers, and wavering voices singing psalms, drew his attention.

  He looked towards the Seine.

  The buildings that lined much of the river parted here for a series of wharves. Below the bulk of the Conciergerie on the island, he could see a strip of the moonlit bank. The river was swollen by the recent summer storm. On the strand, with their banners and burning torches, Christ’s militias were murdering Huguenots and slinging the corpses in the foam. Here and there groups of two or three knelt around some victim splayed in the mud and rutted like pigs. The doomed were herded down to the beach at spear point in pathetic clusters, family upon family, the nature of their end stark before them.

  Tannhauser was sickened. The suspicion taunted him that all killing was much the same in the end, and that those who embraced death without making a contest of it, who chose to defend their souls over their lives, were the truly wise. The longest life was a morning dream as measured by the turning of the world. Tannhauser didn’t have the temperament to live by such a creed; his dream was too compelling to be thus constrained. He loved his dream. He loved it now. Or perhaps he loved death, and in order to love death you had to be breathing. More likely, he just lacked the wisdom.

  ‘How dare you, monsieur? Don’t you know who I am? This is my house.’

  Le Tellier sounded like a plucked crow.

  Tannhauser stooped and picked up Baro by his jerkin and belt, and hefted him three paces and slung him on his belly across the desk, where he continued to twitch.

  ‘I know who you are,’ said Tannhauser. ‘And the house is mine.’

  He wielded the mace high and staved in Baro’s skull. The scalp tore like lace and the vault burst apart along its sutures. Blood and vile jelly soused Le Tellier’s face. He gagged and recoiled and covered his eyes.

  Petit Christian stirred to his hands and knees and eyed the door. Tannhauser laid the mace down. He hoisted Baro’s corpse and dumped it on the toadeater’s back like some limp and cadaverous sodomite. He turned and leaned on the desk.

  Le Tellier’s beard was pickled in the brains of his last defender. He broke wind as his entrails loosened. His mind was either vacant or teeming with futile calculations. He dared not look at his captor. Tannhauser cracked the desk with the mace. Le Tellier flinched as he was splashed again.

  ‘That’s a knight’s collar. It sits ill on the breast of a coward. Surrender it.’

  ‘I have borne the Order of Saint Michael with honour.’

  ‘You shat on it. Take it off.’

  Le Tellier lifted the chain over his head as if its weight near defeated him.

  Tannhauser hadn’t expected so feeble an adversary. But then, the last time Le Tellier had been this close to violence was likely some brawl in the market twenty years before. With fresh blood he had never been this intimate at all. Its primal force neutered his will. Like most who sat on gilded chairs and sent others to kill and die, his liver was as white. Tannhauser took the collar and hung it around his own neck. The solid gold cockleshells slithered in the gore on his chest.

  ‘Your counterfeit honour is gone,’ said Tannhauser, ‘along with everything else you ever bought or extorted. You’ve failed, in every particular. You’ve ruined yourself entire. And all these misfortunes for my sake and in my name.’

  Le Tellier met his eyes for the first time. He spoke as if invoking some apparition whose spirit had long infested his inmost mind.

  ‘Mattias Tannhauser.’

  ‘This feud was over some wrong you believe I’ve done you.’

  ‘In matters of indisputable fact, belief is not required.’

  ‘A personal matter, then, not a matter of politics or law.’

  ‘Of man’s law, no,’ said Le Tellier. ‘Of natural justice, yes –’

  ‘So there are none higher than you who are aware of this wrong.’

  ‘None but God and the Devil.’

  That was all Tannhauser needed to know from Marcel Le Tellier.

  ‘Neither ever lost a wager they placed on me.’

  He took the mace and walked around the desk to the chair.

  ‘I made you grieve for her,’ said Le Tellier. ‘I made you weep.’

  The hatred had finally struggled to the surface of his terror.

  Tannhauser nodded.

  ‘So you did. I suffered a day of pain that I wouldn’t exchange for all the gold in Paris. I won friends for whom I would die. I learned things I would with gladness have given my life to know. I walked into the bowels of perdition and was greeted by the face of my new daughter. And Carla? You gave me the chance to fall in love with her, all over again.’

  Le Tellier took this in. The hatred melted into some deep sorrow of his own, and for a moment he was some man other.

  ‘For that and all,’ said Tannhauser, ‘I am in your debt.’

  He clamped a hand around Le Tellier’s mouth and smashed the mace through the top of his left shoulder. The flange snapped the bony roof clean away and the ball of the humerus popped loose and the arm dangled in spasms. Le Tellier bucked on the fine red velvet as his nerve strings were plucked from their roots. Phlegm sprayed from his nostrils over Tannhauser’s knuckles. The police chief tried to rise to his feet but was no match for either the agony or Tannhauser’s strength.

  Tannhauser withdrew his hand and flicked the slime. He circled the back of the chair while Le Tellier sucked for breath. He unmade Le Tellier’s right shoulder in similar fashion and clamped the gaping mouth as it opened. He wondered why. Screams abounded tonight. Who would imagine that this one came from the city’s foremost procurer of torture? He maced Le Tellier through the knee. Le Tellier rocked around on this throne. Tannhauser put the mace on the desk. Le Tellier wore a linen ruff about his throat. Tannhauser ripped it off and crammed a length between Le Tellier’s teeth.

  He retrieved the crossbow.

  He returned and took Le Tellier’s left hand and slapped it palm-down on the desk. Le Tellier choked at the grinding of his shattered joint but could offer
no resistance. Tannhauser held the hand in place by trapping the wrist against the oak with the outer rim of the crossbow stirrup, vertically applied.

  ‘When I leave I will forget you. Within weeks, so will all who ever knew you.’

  He stacked the right hand on the left, and fixed both by the stirrup.

  ‘Within days, some other will sit in this golden chair, for when a chair is the prize the chair is all that matters, not the man who sticks his arse on it.’

  Tannhauser corrected the angle of the crossbow and triggered it. With a flat crack the bolt pierced the hands and a good two inches of the oak underneath them. Le Tellier’s pain was likely swamped by greater pangs, but the look in his eyes was compensation.

  ‘I don’t need a chair.’

  Tannhauser tilted the gilded throne until it toppled over. The bolt held firm as Le Tellier plunged to the floor. He hung from his socketless arms and twisted like some half-slaughtered beast in an abattoir of pain.

  Tannhauser recharged the crossbow and left him to his paroxysms.

  He scouted the ante-room and landing. He listened at the foot of the stair to the next floor. Fifteen rooms. Apart from the obscene grunts drifting from Le Tellier’s office the house was silent with the silence of those who wished not to be found. If they hadn’t yet run to the gunshot, they weren’t going to. If they were going to kill Carla at such a provocation, she was already dead. But so blind an order made no sense and without it no one would dare.

  He went back down to the lobby and opened the door and checked the street. It was quiet. He waved towards the stockyard gate to indicate all was well. A thin arm waved back. He bolted the door and went to the kitchen. He found a basket and filled it with what he could see: the better part of a haunch of mutton, cheeses, a smoked ham and sausages hanging in the pantry, jars of pickles and preserves; bread. He left the basket by the front door and went back to fetch a tapped kilderkin of wine.

  He returned to the office.

  Le Tellier wallowed behind the desk, trying to rise to his one good knee but defeated by the need to throw his weight against diverse and appalling injuries. Christian panted beneath the corpse. His head was soaked in the leakage from Baro’s skull.

  ‘Get up.’

  ‘Please, sire, I can’t breathe.’

  Tannhauser rolled the corpse off him with his boot.

  Petit Christian crawled to Tannhauser’s feet as if he might kiss them. He struggled upright against the miseries of a fractured pubic bone. He had pissed himself.

  ‘Take me to my wife.’

  ‘Please, sire, Excellency, I can’t. She isn’t here.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Sire, when we brought her here, she refused to get out of the cart. She reminded Captain Garnier that he was her protector, that she was a free woman, accused of no crime, and that if he had not the courtesy to offer her sanctuary, she would rather he at least take her some good distance from this foul place and leave her in the street.’

  Tannhauser absorbed this unwelcome news.

  ‘Fetch my bow and quiver. Carry both on your left shoulder.’

  Christian waddled off to obey.

  Tannhauser imagined Garnier cringing under Carla’s disdain. It was the intelligent move. But no matter how sharp her wits, the throes of labour had to have left her exhausted and frail. Her feelings he could not imagine. Her peril had been so extreme she had surrendered Amparo to the care of a ragamuffin girl. That could only have been because she had expected to die. Without her babe, her torment must be immense.

  He swallowed a knot in his throat.

  Petit Christian returned and saw his face. He took two steps backwards.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, little playwright. Give me no good reason and I’ll not kill you. Where has Garnier taken her?’

  ‘Sire, he has a fine house on the north bank of the City, near the Pont au Change. He promised her every comfort that his wife and servants could provide.’

  ‘Security? Guards?’

  Christian was distracted by a gargle of distress from his former master.

  Tannhauser slapped him, lightly. Christian staggered.

  ‘Security was not discussed, sire. A militiaman or two, perhaps, for her peace of mind. No one would dare invade Garnier’s house. No one has any reason to.’

  ‘Does Garnier know I’m Carla’s husband?’

  ‘There was no reason to tell him. Only Dominic knows, and we three here.’

  Tannhauser slapped him again. Christian fell over and writhed.

  ‘Do not include me in any “we’s” of yours.’

  ‘Forgive me.’

  ‘Dominic wasn’t happy, was he?’

  ‘He had no grounds to protest, though he tried. I stopped him myself, sire.’

  ‘Where is Dominic, his musket men?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Tannhauser didn’t believe him but that, along with other questions, could wait.

  ‘Is Stefano still here with Orlandu?’

  Christian blinked.

  ‘Stefano refused to leave Orlandu’s side. They’ve been treated well, sire.’

  ‘Are they otherwise guarded?’

  ‘No, sire.’

  ‘Any guns in there? Bows?’

  ‘No. The Swiss has a sword.’

  ‘There must be ready money in this room. Fetch it.’

  ‘The keys are on his Excellency’s belt, sire.’

  Christian indicated Le Tellier. He had abandoned his master with no more scruple than a drunk would an ugly whore. He crawled around the desk and searched the wretched villain, flinching at the groans he provoked. He unlocked a drawer in the desk and lifted out a cash box.

  Tannhauser walked to the window. The killing by the river continued. By the clock on the tower of the Conciergerie it was twenty minutes to ten o’clock. He could get Carla to the gate at the Porte Saint-Denis by the time it opened at midnight.

  ‘The day was expensive, sire. About thirty pistoles, over half in écus d’or.’

  Christian was looking inside two open sacks.

  ‘Bring both sacks with you.’

  Tannhauser closed the casement.

  In his mind he saw Pascale.

  ‘What were Le Tellier’s orders concerning the children at Frogier’s sister’s?’

  ‘Frogier?’

  Christian retreated and cowered as Tannhauser walked to the desk.

  ‘You were with Frogier this evening.’

  Tannhauser shoved Le Tellier with a boot. Le Tellier howled into his ruff.

  ‘Le Tellier sent three sergents to hold Anne in custody, at Irène’s,’ said Christian. ‘In case you returned.’

  ‘Anne?’

  He remembered. Frogier knew Pascale as Anne.

  ‘The girl with raven hair. Le Tellier asked which one you were most fond of.’

  Tannhauser looked down. Le Tellier’s eyes were marbled with terror.

  ‘And the others?’

  ‘He said Anne would be enough, and that the rest would just get in the way.’

  Tannhauser remembered the Mice laughing at the spilled eggs. Juste eating fig pies. Flore. His right hand closed around Le Tellier’s throat. The skin was papery and sweaty against his palm. As he lifted him from the floor he felt the tug of the anchored bolt against tendon and bone, the spasms in the unsocketed shoulders. He sensed the policeman’s excruciation. And that excruciation wasn’t enough.

  ‘I had nothing to do with it.’

  Christian’s whimpered disavowal restored Tannhauser’s wits.

  He didn’t want Le Tellier to die just yet. He dropped him to squirm.

  ‘Take me to Orlandu.’

  Tannhauser aimed to leave no one to tell of his doings in the hôtel; but he didn’t want to kill Stefano. Christian laboured up the stair on his broken pelvis. Tannhauser pushed past him and grabbed him by the scruff and dragged him to the second floor. The domestic staff had been dismissed for the night and wouldn’t emerge unless summoned. They stopped
at a door. Tannhauser knocked.

  ‘Stefano of Sion, Mattias Tannhauser.’

  The big Swiss opened the door, holding a sword. He took in Tannhauser’s blood-boltered corpus, the gold collar, the crossbow. He sheathed the sword and saluted.

  Tannhauser spoke in Italian.

  ‘How went the day?’

  ‘My lord, since last I saw you, my hardest battle has been not to fall asleep.’

  ‘How is Orlandu? Is he fit to travel?’

  ‘If no forced march is required. He’s poorly – hot chills – but his head’s clear. I’ve had him walk up and down the room for a quarter of every hour.’

  ‘Excellent man. Now, with regret, we must part again.’

  ‘If I may, my lord, I’ve seen that collar before –’

  ‘If it were still around Le Tellier’s neck you’d be dead by morning.’

  ‘That’s why I didn’t nap. I’ve sniffed ill will since we got here, though Orlandu was content. If you need me further, only ask.’

  Tannhauser was tempted. But Stefano could have no idea what might be required. Tannhauser didn’t want the Swiss Guards on his back, which, if he led one of their corporals that far astray, they might well be.

  ‘I want everything you’ve seen and done since you left the Hôtel Béthizy with Sergent Baro – who is dead – to be your fastest secret. Spin some tale to cover your absence. On a day like this what tale could not be spun? Will you do that, on your word?’

  ‘On my word, my lord, the secret is fast. May I know why?’

  ‘We both of us were drawn into a conspiracy not of our making. The conspiracy began, and ends, with Marcel Le Tellier, and his end stands before you. Whatever investigation there may be of his conspiracy – or of his end – it would spell your doom to have played any part in it. At the same time, in no possible circumstance could playing any such part bring you any benefit.’

  Stefano glanced at Christian. He looked at Tannhauser.

  Tannhauser said, ‘There will be no witnesses as to your presence here.’