by Tim Willocks
‘Where’s my lion?’
‘Safe in my pocket. You were right. This isn’t a good place. We’re leaving.’
‘Are we going back to the Yards?’
‘Tonight we can’t get across the river. Will you do something brave for me?’
‘What?’
‘Creep to the stairs, very softly. See if there is anyone below, by the front door.’
Antoinette shrugged and nodded, as if such a task was nothing to a girl who had conquered Cockaigne. Carla hugged her. She opened the door. Antoinette left.
Carla washed her own face. Her hair was still in a braid and she smoothed down the loose strands. Her frock bore numerous stains, but few men noted such things.
‘There’s no one there,’ said Antoinette.
In the hallway stood her gambo violl. Carla picked up the case. Its weight made her feel stronger. Had she been required to push it inch by inch up the street on her knees, she would have done so. She opened the front door.
Both guards sat dozing on the steps, their lanterns and weapons at their feet. They did not wake. Carla prodded Bonnett with the case. He scrambled up, as did his fellow.
‘Ensign Bonnett, Captain Garnier will be happy to hear that his wife and his guests enjoy such vigilant protection.’
‘I humbly beg your pardon, my lady. The day has been long, I was up in the dark –’
‘So was I. We are going to Notre-Dame for matins.’
‘Matins?’
‘The midnight office. Psalms, readings from Scripture and the lives of the Saints.’
‘Yes, my lady. Matins. But, it can’t be much past eleven o’clock.’
‘You keep good time for one who sleeps on duty. I am entitled to pray. Must the captain also know that you refused to accompany his ward to church? Or do you fear to walk in the dark? If so, we will walk alone, for we do not.’
Bonnett saw the violl case. He looked up at Carla.
She looked back down at him.
‘Do they play music at matins, my lady?’
She stared at him without speaking. Bonnett bowed.
‘My lady, please let me carry your baggage.’
Carla was glad to get outside. Though she took short steps and her pelvis was a bruised mass, she was glad, too, to be walking. Antoinette held her hand as they headed east towards the Pont Notre-Dame and its chain and its contingent of militiamen, who toasted chestnuts on a brazier. They headed south past Saint-Christopher’s and then east again towards the towers of the cathedral.
Some of the houses and businesses had hired watchmen to stand outside. They nodded to Bonnett and, though she despised him, she was glad to have an escort so well known. They passed the Hôtel-Dieu. Unlike the streets of the Ville, these were free of corpses but she didn’t doubt they had been here. The groundwater left by the shower that afternoon had dried out, apart from that collected in the deeper potholes, but the rain hadn’t washed away the black stains that clung to a wall here and a door there. The island was a death trap. The hush she had felt that morning was intensified by night. It lay everywhere like an invisible fog, thickened, now, with horror, and even shame, though she saw little of either in the faces of the soldiery.
They reached the Parvis and she recognised the clutch and slither of congealed blood beneath her feet. She had trodden in such before. They had desecrated even the Parvis. The moon was behind them and nearing its height and the cathedral’s intricate façade formed a vast mosaic of silver and absolute black. The Last Judgement was hidden in shadow but it was there, and so was she. The great doors beneath the frieze stood open. A dim glow shimmered within, thrown by scores of candles yet unseen. Three militiamen loitered around the entrance, she presumed to weed out Huguenots seeking shelter, and again she was glad of Bonnett’s presence. She bent down to the girl.
‘Antoinette? We’ll be safe here until we’re sure we will be safe somewhere else. It was your story that brought us here, so I thank you.’
‘My story?’
‘The story you made with the cards, the lady with the lion.’
Bonnett stepped back suddenly – leaving Carla, she could not help but notice, in the path of whatever danger threatened – and drew his sword.
A slender figure dashed towards them from the north side of the square. With one hand she held her frock up around her thighs; in the other she held a sack. She stopped a few steps short of Carla, and dropped her skirts and held the sack in both hands, or, rather, with the fingers of one hand slipped inside the sack’s mouth. She stood tensed for quick movement. She glanced at Bonnett, and Carla had the curious sense that he was in more danger than the girl.
Bonnett snarled to cover his embarrassment.
‘Who’re you, slut?’
The girl ignored him. She looked at Carla. She was perhaps fourteen. Her hair was cut short without much regard for style and shone as blue as Turkish indigo under the moon. Her face was smudged with what looked like, but could not have been, powder black. Her eyes were grim but determined. Carla sensed she had seen worse things that day than even she had witnessed.
‘Can you take us inside, madame?’
‘Heretics, is it?’ said Bonnett.
‘Be quiet, Bonnett.’
‘If you don’t,’ said the girl, ‘they will try to kill us.’
‘Try?’ said Bonnett.
‘Ensign Bonnett, I said be quiet.’
Carla nodded to the girl.
‘Of course I’ll take you inside. How many are you?’
‘Four. Can you trust him?’
‘I trust his fear of his captain, whose favour I enjoy.’
The girl turned and beckoned. Three more figures emerged from nowhere and ran towards them. In the middle was a boy, around the same age as the girl. A pair of bulging saddle wallets were slung over his shoulder. They flapped as if heavily loaded. Two small girls, identical in feature, clung onto his hands.
‘I don’t know about this, my lady,’ said Bonnett.
‘Ensign Bonnett, I had hoped to spare Captain Garnier the humiliation of hearing that his wife’s defenders fell asleep on her doorstep. Accompany these children through the doors with me, and I will.’
‘Are you looking to be baptised into the One True Church?’ Bonnett asked the girl.
The girl shifted her weight and eyed him up and down. Carla was sure, though Bonnett, his sword lowered, was oblivious, that the girl was ready to pounce on him.
The girl said: ‘No.’
‘Enough,’ said Carla. ‘Take us inside. You go first. And put that sword away.’
Bonnett sheathed his sword and drew himself up to his full height, which was some inches less than either Carla’s or the girl’s. He puffed his chest and led the way, accepting slovenly salutes from the men on the door. Carla gestured for the children to go ahead of her and all but the girl did. The girl walked beside her, lithe as a tomcat.
They passed beneath the Last Judgement.
The cathedral, which she had expected to be empty, was half-full of refugees, all of them women and children as far as she could see. Their misery filled the immense space like incense. Carla turned to Bonnett and retrieved her violl.
‘If you wish to stay and pray for forgiveness, you are welcome. If not, I free you from your charge. You may tell your captain I am safe and well.’
Carla was indifferent to his decision and left him to it. When she turned back to ask the girl her name, she found that the four fugitive children had disappeared.
Carla didn’t dwell on them. The service she had done them was small; they had a lot of company. She took Antoinette’s hand and walked up the nave. She had to find a priest, explain who she was. She would speak Italian. Most priests here would have at least a smattering. It would mark her out at once from the Huguenots.
She felt faint. A cramp. Her legs threatened to give way. She was some way down the nave. If she passed out she might well be ignored, as many lay prostrate on the tiles. She set down her violl and slid into the ne
arest bench and pulled Antoinette beside her. Her head swam. She lowered it to her knees. It was the emptiness inside her. It was consuming her. She had to have her baby back. She saw Amparo’s face. What if she never saw Amparo again? The nuns would rename her. Someone would claim her, adopt her. How soon? A wet nurse would feed her. Tonight? She’d be hungry. She’d be alone. The memory of the warmth and love into which Amparo had been born brought a great sob from Carla’s heart. Estelle. Alice. Her mother.
How could the babe not know all that was gone?
What had she done?
The priest. She had to find a priest.
She tried to stand but couldn’t. She felt something slide out of her.
This was sanctuary.
She covered her face with her skirts and cried, too empty to call upon God.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
A Very Particular God
TANNHAUSER THREADED HIS way across the market by the Port Saint-Landry. He saw no one. He set the lamp by the stable gate and lifted Estelle from his shoulders. Amparo was asleep. She was a little miracle. He took Estelle’s hand. They skirted a body dumped by a midden with its neck cut nigh to the spine below the ear. They slipped through the dark towards Irène’s.
He stopped at an alley several houses short.
He saw no sign of a lookout. Le Tellier would have sent at least one killer stony enough to murder three children, a Baro not a Frogier, and two degenerate enough to hold them and watch. They were expecting him. They’d been sent to capture him alive. They had made thousands of arrests and would expect this to be just another. Irène would answer the door. She probably lied well. One man in hiding, below, or two? At least one would remain upstairs to threaten Pascale. He armed the pistol and the crossbow.
‘Estelle, will you wait here and look after my bow?’
She nodded.
‘What will you do if I don’t come out again?’
‘Run with Amparo and make of our life.’
‘You’re a clever girl.’
‘But you will come out again.’
‘Of course I will.’
He stepped out from the wall. He could see no lights in Irène’s house. He went to the window and pressed his nose to the glass. A dim glow came from the kitchen. He hammered on the door three times, returned to the window and watched the candle approach through the blur. A woman’s shape. He shouted through the door.
‘Madame Irène? Sergent Baro here.’
The door moved and he shoved it open and barged past Irène, lowering the crossbow. The smell of powder. A dead man lay on his belly at the foot of the stairs.
‘They’re all gone.’ Irène’s face was gaunt. ‘Except for the bodies.’
Tannhauser took the candle from her hand.
The sergent’s lower face had been shot away. There was a large-bore hole not far below the nape of his neck. A rifle ball. The range had been so close as to incinerate a good swath of shirt and hair. Tannhauser looked up the stair. Blackness.
He went up quickly. Thickened gore greased the upper steps and shone across the landing in a burgundy jelly. A second body lay folded backwards from his knees, his thighs and belly similarly caked.
Pascale had killed two sergents. Juste might have shot one; but his gut didn’t believe it. She hadn’t just wanted some fellowship. She had wanted the knowledge.
The front bedroom was empty. In the rear bedroom, the moonlight was enough to see a body under a sheet. He pulled it down. Flore. He had liked her. Juste had loved her. So had Pascale. He replaced the sheet. There were no other dead.
Juste and the Mice were alive. Pascale had killed Le Tellier’s men before they could carry out their orders; by the looks of it, before they’d had a chance to speak.
He set the candle on the empty bed and went to the window.
He saw no blood on the sill. He saw the two barges. Across the water, torches moved and braziers burned on the Place de Grève. The militia’s numbers had much thinned since this afternoon, but there were still at least three score of them, presumably as a reserve. There would be scores more in the surrounding streets.
Where would the children go?
He remembered Estelle. He turned to go and fetch her.
A word was smeared in blood on the wall above the candle.
‘MICE.’
Tannhauser brought Estelle and Amparo indoors.
Irène grimaced at both of them.
‘I’m thirsty,’ said Estelle.
‘We’ll go in the kitchen,’ he said. ‘Irène, fetch us some water.’
Irène held her tongue. She provided water. Tannhauser propped the crossbow by the door. He and Estelle drank. Amparo would soon need a breast.
‘Mice,’ he muttered.
‘Little swine. My floors are ruined, too.’
‘Buy a mop. What happened to the third sergent?’
‘Anne ran after him down the street. When she came back, she said he was dead.’
The body in the midden. Tannhauser felt a surge of admiration.
‘So she killed all three.’
‘She almost killed me, too.’
Tannhauser wondered why she hadn’t. Irène read him.
‘She said she didn’t know if you would.’
‘Then you’re in my debt. When did they leave?’
‘Just as it turned dark.’
Almost three hours ago. A long time to hide; enough to get elsewhere. Tybaut the pimp. ‘MICE’ meant they had gone to Tybaut’s. Wherever that was. Time scourged him. A nose to a nose. Father Pierre at Notre-Dame.
Irène hugged herself. ‘I’ve been here all night, alone with that corpse, waiting for Alois. Or you.’
‘No one will come from the Châtelet tonight.’
‘What are you going to do to me?’
‘Stay indoors. I’ll put the body in the street.’
‘Very thoughtful, I’m sure. What do I tell Alois?’
‘Frogier is dead.’
Irène put a hand to her mouth.
Tannhauser emptied the water down his throat. He set down the jug.
‘How did he die?’
‘In agony, in the dark.’
‘You bastard.’
‘Frogier promised the children safety. You took my gold for the same.’
‘I’ll see you hanged.’
‘I am no Scotsman.’
‘You’re all the same. Bloody bastards. You make me sick.’
Tannhauser felt a twinge in his back. He thought twice about the body.
Irène screeched, ‘I’ll see all of you hanged.’
‘Beware, Irène. The waters Frogier drowned in are deep enough to take you under, too. If questions come, claim you know nothing.’
‘I’ll have the lot of you. Your bloody children, too. I’ll go to Le Tellier.’
Irène folded over and flew back into the sideboard and twisted as she fell. The dull snap of the crossbow’s sinews accompanied her death, which was instant.
‘I think I got her in the heart,’ said Estelle.
More likely the aorta, given the rate she was bleeding, but Tannhauser didn’t quibble. Estelle bore the look of one who had swatted a wasp. She expected no censure. He had none to offer. In Irène’s death, he could only see the advantages, not least to his back. He checked on Amparo. She was blinking, but seemed unperturbed by the missile just released beneath her.
‘I made sure you weren’t in the way,’ said Estelle.
‘Good. The first rule of shooting at anything.’
He took the crossbow from her and recharged it.
‘She said she’d hang the children.’
‘Well, we couldn’t stand for that, could we?’
She followed him from the kitchen. He took the spare quiver from the corpse.
‘Where are we going now?’ asked Estelle.
‘To see a nose in Notre-Dame. Do you know a quiet way?’
‘Can we fly again?’
‘Fly? We’ll have to.’
Estelle too
k him through the Cloisters. They were deserted. Amparo began crying, with a surprising lustiness for one so tiny. Tannhauser was charmed. What spirit. Estelle murmured to her. She was still crying when they reached the front edge of the cathedral. He set down his gear and the candle and lifted Estelle from his shoulders.
‘I think she wants to face me,’ said Estelle.
She loosened the buttons on her shirt and turned Amparo around. She crouched against the wall in the candle light and murmured to the babe and she quieted.
Tannhauser took the crossbow and scouted the Parvis. All was quiet but for two militia guarding the central portal. Their pikes were propped against the archway. A lantern stood at their feet.
He returned and took Estelle’s hand and raised her up.
‘I’m going to send you into the cathedral. Wait for me near the font. Walk ahead of me with the candle.’
He followed two paces behind her, where even the small flame would blind them to his presence. The guards saw Estelle and roused themselves, though to curiosity rather than alertness. Another pair of stalwart citizens recruited to a giant evil.
Tannhauser stepped out, well to Estelle’s right, and levelled the crossbow.
‘The first to touch a weapon takes it in the cock. So does the first to speak.’
Both stared at the bolt. Neither moved.
‘You don’t have to die tonight. Think of your wives and a soft bed. You, take the lantern. Both of you, turn around and hold hands.’
They obeyed. Their hands grappled for each other as if seeking comfort.
‘Estelle, go inside.’
He watched Estelle through the portal. He took a pike.
‘Walk round the side of the church.’
He stopped them in the shadow of the south transept.
‘Ditch those helmets. Put the lantern down. Noses to the wall.’
They obeyed without letting go of each other. Tannhauser propped the crossbow and piked the first where his neck met the base of his skull. The second didn’t dare turn. As his comrade slid down the wall without a sound, he didn’t let go of his hand.
