by Tim Willocks
‘I understand, my lord. And I can spin tales.’
Tannhauser took the lighter of the sacks from Christian and handed it to Stefano.
‘I’d keep this secret, too. Spend it in Sion.’
The sack’s weight caused the Swiss’s eyebrows to rise.
Tannhauser clapped him on the back.
‘Some other day, then, some other battle.’
‘I hope so, my lord. As long as we’re on the same side.’
‘If not, strike hard, for I will.’
Stefano saluted. He started down the stair.
‘Stefano, use the back door, or a girl might shoot you in the chest. And be warned, down in the lobby you’ll find –’
‘I already found them, my lord, while you claimed the collar. Buona fortuna.’
Tannhauser heard Orlandu’s voice.
‘Mattias?’
Tannhauser removed the bolt and propped the crossbow. He pushed Christian into the room ahead of him. Orlandu sat in a chair, his tanned complexion waxy, but he was hale enough to rise to his feet and stand up straight. His eyes were as dark as his father’s, to all intents black. Tannhauser grinned; an effect the sight of the lad had always had on him. Orlandu didn’t smile.
He said, ‘You’re covered in blood.’
‘Don’t worry, it’s not mine.’
Still Orlandu did not smile.
‘Let me embrace you,’ said Tannhauser, ‘or at least shake your hand.’
Orlandu’s left arm was bound across his chest in a sling. He held out his right hand and Tannhauser took it in his. His joy was tarnished by the sight of the porter.
The porter shrank back into the shadows.
‘This is Boniface,’ said Orlandu.
‘We’ve met,’ said Tannhauser. ‘Can you walk down the stairs?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Sit on the steps in the lobby, I won’t be long. If anyone knocks, call for me, then ask them who they are.’
‘Please, my boy,’ said Boniface. ‘He’s going to murder me in cold blood.’
‘Be thankful it’s not hotter.’ Tannhauser looked at Orlandu. ‘“My boy”?’
Orlandu twitched. He looked at the gold collar on Tannhauser’s chest.
‘You’ve killed his Excellency?’
Tannhauser was more disturbed than Orlandu was.
‘His Excellency prays for death, down below.’
‘Mattias,’ said Orlandu, ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Neither do I, but it can wait. Carla is in danger. Go and watch the front door.’
‘Boniface is my friend. I lodge in his home.’
Tannhauser’s stomach turned. He looked at the porter.
Boniface lowered himself to his knees and clasped his hands.
‘Yesterday,’ said Tannhauser, ‘this friend told me he couldn’t remember the last time he saw your face. Are you mates with this degenerate, too?’
Orlandu glanced at Petit Christian, and Tannhauser saw that it was so.
‘These clowns schemed with Le Tellier to kill your mother.’
‘That’s not possible.’
Tannhauser stared at him. ‘Are you still delirious?’
‘Le Tellier is a great man,’ said Orlandu. ‘A brilliant man. He’s taught me many things about politics. Thanks to him, I was to be ordained into the Pilgrims of Saint-Jacques, which is a –’
‘I know what they are. Soon, so will you.’
Tannhauser closed his mind to the pain he felt. Orlandu’s father, Ludovico, had been a fanatic, an inquisitor. Did it run in the blood? He took a breath.
‘Le Tellier’s only claim to brilliance is as a deceiver. And you have been deceived.’
‘Is it true?’ Orlandu directed the question to Petit Christian.
Tannhauser backhanded Petit Christian to the floor.
‘You ask this sack of filth to vouch for my word?’
Orlandu stepped back from his rage, as well he might.
‘To what degree are you in league with these beasts?’
‘Not against you, Mattias. Nor my mother. How could you –’
‘Then against who?’
Orlandu retreated further, no longer unreadable. He was terrified.
At this moment, Tannhauser could summon no sympathy.
‘You’ve not been here,’ said Orlandu. ‘You don’t know the radical Huguenots, or what they’re like or what they intend to do, to the Crown, to the country –’
‘Who shot you?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Orlandu. ‘It was dark. They came from behind.’
Tannhauser trod on Christian’s head and compressed his skull into the planks.
‘Who shot him?’
‘Dominic shot him,’ said Christian. ‘Dominic and Baro.’
‘Why?’
‘We couldn’t let Carla leave,’ panted Christian, ‘or the scheme would fail. I saved the boy’s life. Dominic would have finished him but those weren’t the orders. I reminded him. I said he might yet prove useful.’
‘“Couldn’t let her leave”? What do you mean?’
‘Orlandu tried to move his mother out of the Hôtel D’Aubray.’
Tannhauser looked at Orlandu. In the dark eyes lurked something terrible.
‘You found out about their scheme,’ said Tannhauser.
Orlandu didn’t speak. Perhaps he couldn’t.
‘Answer me, lad.’
Still Orlandu didn’t speak.
‘Christian, how did Orlandu learn of your scheme?’
‘I don’t know.’
Tannhauser leaned more weight on his heel and felt the cranium underneath it change shape. Christian’s eyes bulged. He flailed and gibbered.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know. Oh God, stop, I don’t know.’
‘Yes, yes, stop this, I beg you,’ cried Boniface. ‘I told him.’
Tannhauser lifted his foot. He looked at the porter.
‘Not all of it, but enough,’ said Boniface. ‘I grew to love Orlandu, long since. Then his mother came to Paris. When he would return from his visits with her, I witnessed his joy. He was so beautiful, more beautiful than ever, though I’d not thought that possible. I didn’t care about her. I’ve never seen her. I kept silent. But when the day neared, I couldn’t bear to see that beauty ruined. I told him I’d heard, from a reliable source, that assassins had been hired to kill Symonne D’Aubray, and that in her home his mother was in danger of her life.’
Boniface fell to weeping.
Tannhauser looked at Orlandu. Clearly the lad had no conception of the nature of Boniface’s love, and so it should stay. The tale begged other questions, but Tannhauser didn’t ask them. He had had enough of answers. He drew his dagger and walked to Boniface. The withered pederast grabbed at his boots.
‘The old fear dying more than do the young. You’d think it would be otherwise.’ Tannhauser glanced at Orlandu. ‘If you don’t want to watch, wait below.’
‘Mattias –’
Tannhauser stooped and knifed the porter in the right lower quarter of his skinny gut. He slit him to the upper left ribcage and left him to convulse in his own entrails.
‘You want to know if I would have saved the D’Aubrays, too.’
Tannhauser wiped the blade. ‘I don’t need to hear it.’
‘You’ve never concealed your truth from me.’
‘You would’ve left the D’Aubrays to die. Fine. Now let’s be on.’
‘No, Mattias. You must hear it.’
Tannhauser braced himself and sheathed his dagger. He nodded.
‘I came here and told Le Tellier what Boniface had told me. I told him I had overheard the rumour in a tavern.’
Tannhauser grunted. What passed for cunning on the docks in Malta was something less than subtle in Paris. Le Tellier had done as he would have done himself; mark Boniface as unsound but keep him working.
Orlandu mistook him. ‘You’ve lied, when you needed to.’
‘It’s a fine art. Go on.’
Tannhauser waited.
‘Admiral Coligny had been shot just that morning. The Huguenot nobles were in uproar, threatening retribution in the streets. Le Tellier explained that in a mood of such outrage, the murder of the widow –’ Orlandu swallowed gall ‘– and the children – of Roger D’Aubray would be sure to incite the Huguenots to war. Even Coligny. He said we could not know the origin of this stratagem – which I took to mean the palace – but that its genius could not be denied. I understood. I agreed. I did not deny it.’
Tannhauser couldn’t think of anything to say to ease his self-disgust.
‘I knew those children,’ said Orlandu. ‘I played with them in the garden. I made them laugh. Do you know what happened to them?’
Tannhauser thought of the polished oak table, the gilded chair. In such rooms, no less than in perfumed carriages, the lives of children counted for nothing.
‘They’re dead.’
Orlandu’s mouth trembled.
‘You must never tell your mother this tale. She saw them die.’
‘What?’ Orlandu’s confusion was appalling. ‘How?’
Tannhauser shook his head.
‘When I woke up, here, Le Tellier told me he’d sent her to the Louvre.’
‘He’s a better liar than you are,’ said Tannhauser. ‘And tell no lies to Carla. Never lie to a woman. They only believe you if they want to, and even then, they know.’
‘Then what should I tell her?’
‘The truth. You were on your way to see her, you were shot and drugged, you woke up here. You were as much a victim of their conspiracy as she was.’
‘Where is she?’
‘She’s waiting for us. Come here.’
Orlandu stumbled over. Tannhauser took his head onto his shoulder.
‘When I was your age I butchered Shiites for the Sultan and thought the work holy. So take my advice. If you must commit mortal crimes, commit them for yourself alone, not for some other, nor for his creed, nor his crown, nor his favour. Then at least we might be damned as men, not as whores.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Let’s be on.’
Tannhauser held him at arm’s length and grinned. Orlandu couldn’t.
‘How can I help?’
‘Carry the bow and quiver, be ready to feed me.’
Tannhauser dragged Christian by his collar and belt and pitched him down the stairs. Moans drifted up from the bottom. Tannhauser dragged the mattress from the bed and threw it after him. He retrieved the crossbow and armed it.
‘Why did Le Tellier plot against Carla?’ asked Orlandu.
‘He nurses some private blood feud against me.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tannhauser. ‘I haven’t asked him.’
The Lieutenant Criminel of Paris balanced on his one good knee behind his polished oak desk. His eyeballs vibrated in his brain-slaked face. The blood-and-mucus-wetted ruff dangled from his mouth like some obscene tumour. He swayed and uttered a medley of muffled cries. With his crossed hands he might have been engaged in some bizarre form of prayer. Perhaps he was.
Orlandu made some sound in his throat.
‘Save your pity,’ said Tannhauser, ‘and if it be disgust, swallow it.’
Tannhauser had moulded this gruesome clay with little feeling. Now he was angry. He questioned the rightness of none of what he had done. It had been necessary. But it affronted him that such grim labours had been set by so base a hypocrite; and that such trash should have corrupted his son. He laid the crossbow on the desk.
‘You, policeman, look at me.’
Le Tellier tried. It was beyond him. He dropped his eyes.
‘Your former acolyte wants to hear your confession, though since neither of us have the power to absolve you, you will shortly join the damned.’
The Catholic fanatic was not unaware of his eternal destiny.
‘You will answer me by nodding,’ said Tannhauser. ‘Nod.’
Le Tellier nodded.
‘You paid for Carla to be murdered in order to torment me.’
Le Tellier nodded.
‘When you learned I was in Paris, you hired bravos to deliver me to you.’
Le Tellier nodded.
‘With Carla captive, you hoped to make me watch her die.’
Le Tellier started to sob.
‘You knew she was pregnant,’ said Tannhauser. ‘Answer.’
Le Tellier nodded.
‘You did this for revenge.’
For the first time, Le Tellier looked at him. He nodded.
‘And before you had me killed,’ said Tannhauser, ‘you were counting on the pleasure of telling me why I deserved a punishment so vile.’
Le Tellier nodded. Squeezed tears dribbled into his beard.
‘If I take the rag from your mouth, will you tell me what it was I did to earn your hatred?’
Le Tellier didn’t need to nod. His desperation to accuse the guilty of his crime blazed brighter than hope. He nodded thrice.
‘Good,’ said Tannhauser. ‘Because I don’t want to know.’
Le Tellier didn’t believe him.
Orlandu did. He walked around the table and reached for the gag.
‘Leave it where it is,’ said Tannhauser.
‘I want to know,’ said Orlandu.
‘You have no say in this.’
Orlandu confined his pain to the blackness in his eyes.
‘There are many with cause to curse the day I was born,’ said Tannhauser. ‘I need no more cause to remember this one.’
‘Won’t it haunt you?’
‘If I were the type to be haunted, I would be insane.’
Le Tellier garbled. Tannhauser looked at him.
‘Whatever I did to you or yours, I feel no morsel of regret. Your revenge and your reasons mean nothing to me. Your anguish means nothing at all.’
Le Tellier struggled to take this in. His eyes became deranged.
Tannhauser leaned forward and stared into them.
‘And before I leave this city, of which you believed yourself master, I will butcher your son.’
Le Tellier mewled through his gag.
Tannhauser drew his sword.
‘Let me kill him,’ said Orlandu.
Tannhauser swallowed on something sour.
‘In Malta, as brothers, we faced honourable foes, and I took pains not to let you take a single life. There is no honour in taking this one.’
He took Orlandu to the window and opened it.
‘Nor in taking these.’
He let him see the shameful doings on the gore-blackened strand.
‘There are your Pilgrims. There’s your war.’
Orlandu held onto the sill with his one good hand.
‘Our war,’ said Tannhauser, ‘for I’m guiltier than thee.’
He left Orlandu to make of it what he would.
He returned to Le Tellier.
He lifted the policeman’s chin with the sword for a clear stroke.
‘And so,’ said Tannhauser, ‘to the burning lake below.’
Le Tellier’s eyes brimmed with a final vision of horror.
Tannhauser swung two-handed and cut him clean through the nape.
Le Tellier’s bald head bounced across the desk and rolled at Christian’s feet. A tide of blood swept the oak and set papers to floating. The broken corpse dropped and dangled from the bolt.
Tannhauser took the cup of wine and drained it. It was excellent. As he put it down, one of the papers caught his eye. He recognised the handwriting.
La Fosse.
In the turmoil above he hadn’t grasped the significance of Boniface’s presence.
He looked at Petit Christian, who was leaning against the wall by the door.
‘Playwright, you gave the letter I sent you to Le Tellier.’
‘No, no, sire, that is,
it was not my intention to do so, but Boniface –’
‘You have one last chance to save your life. Tell me their stratagem.’
Petit Christian was an animal of the sort that is quite unable to believe in its own doom, no matter how compelling the signs. While he lived, he thought he would survive.
‘You ordered me to meet you at midnight, sire, under the gallows in the Place de Grève. Dominic and Captain Garnier, and of course their men, are lying in wait, dispersed around the square among the other militia, and the streets thereabouts. They believe you’ll be there early. The letter was the first news we had of you.’
‘So Garnier knows about the printer’s house.’
‘I knew nothing of that, sire, until Frogier, well, in fact it was Le Tellier who told Garnier that you’d massacred nineteen militia. I myself played no part in –’
‘What time are you to take your place beneath the gallows?’
‘Eleven thirty.’
‘Are you to go alone or escorted?’
‘Alone, in case you were watching me.’
They’d give Christian at least five minutes to be late before sending for him.
‘Orlandu,’ said Tannhauser, ‘tell me the time by the clock tower.’
‘It’s just after ten.’
Tannhauser turned back to Petit Christian. ‘Are the Pilgrims on foot?’
‘Dominic, Garnier and Thomas Crucé are mounted.’
Three minutes to get here, five to recover their wits, three to get back to the Place de Grève, ten at least to rally the troops and move them out. Call it midnight. Move out where? He had to assume that they had more wit than they’d shown so far.
The Porte Saint-Denis was still Tannhauser’s best option.
The Temple, and the protection of the knights, lay beyond the Place de Grève, or at the end of a long detour. That problem hadn’t changed: persuade some night guard to open the gates while he conducted a broil in the street, for the Temple was the one place the militia were sure to blockade. They could hide, as Grymonde had suggested, but could he hide so many? And for how many days? By which time Dominic might have the Châtelet, and worse, on their track.
He had to find Carla and Pascale and get back to the Porte Saint-Denis by midnight. Any later and the torrent of traffic would be against them, perhaps even impassable. They had to be first through the gate. The livestock would slow the militia; but Garnier would be no more than half an hour behind them, and unencumbered by a wagon. Should he go and pick off the mounted men now? No. Pursuit would be immediate. They’d flood the quartier. Whatever his own chances, in a running street fight the wagon would have little or none. Garnier would pursue him beyond the city; that, he didn’t doubt.
