Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris

by Tim Willocks

  He dashed back towards the wagon through the shadows by the wall.

  ‘Mattias coming in,’ he called.

  Juste loosed. The arrow passed wide. Tannhauser heard a distant cry behind him.

  The boy was panting and his eyes were wild.

  ‘Easier than ducks, eh, lad?’

  Juste nodded without conviction. Tannhauser divided the dripping bundle and recharged Juste’s quiver and shoved the rest into his own. He spotted the crossbow he’d dropped. The fall had triggered it. He toed the stirrup and drew the sinew and loaded it. He stacked it by Juste. Tannhauser squeezed the lad’s shoulder to calm him.

  ‘You are our rock. Watch for the flankers. If they rush you, fall back.’

  Tannhauser ran back to the wagon. Hugon had loaded himself as told and added the violl to his burdens. The boy was calmer than he was. The Mice held hands, impassive as two matched pearls. Pascale had reclaimed the sack. Estelle had set down the lantern to hug Carla round the waist, it seemed for the latter’s benefit.

  Carla had propped her hams against the wagon, as if it were all that kept her upright. In her face was an anguish he hadn’t seen before.

  ‘I left Antoinette,’ she said. ‘I forgot her.’

  Antoinette? Who was Antoinette? It didn’t matter.

  ‘Left her where?’

  ‘In the cathedral.’

  ‘She’s a sight better off than we are, so be not fretful. My Infant.’

  ‘The Infant is stout,’ said Grymonde, ‘so you be not fretful either.’

  ‘Mattias,’ said Pascale.

  Pascale pointed at Grymonde. He was holding onto the wagon bench. The feathers of an arrow jutted from his right flank and rose and fell with each shallow breath. If the broadhead had cut any vessels worth cutting, even he would have been down; but another ten paces would do the trick. The blade would slice his innards with every move.

  Tannhauser looked at Carla for an opinion.

  ‘If the arrow stays,’ she said, ‘so must he.’

  ‘Will I get it out?’ he asked.

  ‘Find the head. If you can feel it, you can expose it and cut it off.’

  ‘My Infant, very slowly, turn to face me.’

  Grymonde did so and Tannhauser pulled his shirt up and tugged it down through the neck to anchor it. The belly was thickly muscled.

  ‘Hold fast. Pascale, bring the lantern, watch.’

  Tannhauser judged the angle and the length and put his right palm on Grymonde’s belly and his left on the nock of the arrow. He pushed. There was no easy give, as there would be through entrails. He chanced more pressure and felt the tip against his palm.

  ‘The tip is in the belly muscle,’ he said to Carla.

  ‘Good,’ she said.

  ‘Excellent,’ said Grymonde.

  ‘Don’t speak,’ said Tannhauser.

  He pushed harder still and the skin tented against his hand. He marked the spot with a finger and released the nock and drew the dagger on his left hip.

  ‘Pascale, push the nock of the arrow, as I did. Hold when I say so.’

  She did so without a squeam. The skin tented again.

  ‘Hold there.’

  Tannhauser cut an X across the bulge, two inches to either arm. The leaves of skin bulged like a split fig and bled.

  ‘Why don’t you just push it right through?’ asked Pascale.

  ‘He’d resist. The shaft would likely snap short. Ease off a little. There.’

  He put a finger in and felt the tip of the broadhead in the other side of the muscle. He cut alongside the finger. The steel head popped forth and the muscle retracted around the neck. He gave the dagger to Pascale.

  ‘Use both hands. Put the flat of the blade near the hilt against the nock. When I say so, give it a good shove. Two inches. Don’t snap the shaft. Don’t cut yourself.’

  Tannhauser put both palms flat on either side of the wound to anchor the belly.

  ‘My Infant, lean on your arms and let your belly sag, as if you want to piss.’

  ‘I do want to piss.’

  ‘Excellent, then piss.’

  ‘I’ll not piss in my boots.’

  He lowered a hand to release his cock. He sighed as he let go.

  ‘As before, Pascale,’ said Tannhauser. ‘Push just a little.’

  He didn’t want to get stabbed. The arrowhead poked out between his hands.

  ‘Now shove.’

  The broadhead slid three inches clear.

  ‘Enough. Give me the dagger. My Infant, stop pissing.’

  ‘Am I a dog?’

  ‘Is it beyond the King of Cockaigne? Try.’

  Grymonde, so far mute through his ordeal, groaned with the effort.

  The stream abated.

  ‘Harden your stomach tight and hold fast.’

  ‘What now? Do you want me to beshit myself?’

  ‘Only if you must.’

  The arrow stiffened as if in a vice. Tannhauser gripped the head, finger and thumb, and whittled the shaft, above and below, deep into the fixing. He cut the head off.

  ‘Finish your piss.’ Tannhauser went behind him.

  ‘With pleasure. Does that mean we’re done?’

  Tannhauser scrubbed his hands clean on Grymonde’s back, then braced one palm against Grymonde’s ribs and gripped the shaft beyond the fletching. He waited to hear the splashing and heaved. The shaft came eight inches clear before the muscles clenched and his hand slipped and the feathers scorched him.

  Grymonde grunted. ‘That stopped my water quick enough.’

  ‘One more.’

  Tannhauser stepped back and went for a foot and both hands. The muscles didn’t relax at all. He hauled the shaft free and dropped it. Grymonde sighed and put his cock away. Tannhauser scooped axle grease from the bucket hung under the bench and plugged the wounds back and front. He swabbed his hands on Grymonde’s shirt.

  ‘That was a song and dance from a man with three Immortals on board.’

  ‘Two, and a crumb that tasted like you plucked it from your nostrils.’

  ‘Your entrails leak from half a dozen holes. So answer me true.’

  ‘I could walk to your bloody hell ship on my hands.’

  ‘Can you carry Carla?’

  He felt Carla’s hand on his arm. He held it but didn’t turn.

  ‘I’ll carry her to Heaven’s Gate if she wants me to.’

  ‘The hell ship will do for now.’

  ‘I want my eyes. My wings. I want La Rossa.’

  Tannhauser looked at Estelle. She lifted her arms. He doubted the extra weight would tip the balance. Tannhauser took her by the waist and hoisted her onto Grymonde’s shoulders. His smile was horrible.

  ‘Can Amparo fly with me?’ asked Estelle.

  ‘Not this time,’ said Tannhauser

  He turned and opened his arms to Carla. She hesitated.

  ‘If you fall, love, we all fall.’

  The wildness passed between them. She nodded. He picked her up.

  ‘My Infant.’

  Grymonde extended his enormous hands.

  Tannhauser put Carla in his arms. He grinned at her.

  ‘They look more comfortable than mine.’

  Carla smiled. ‘They are.’

  ‘Pascale, take them to the quays. Get them aboard the empty barge.’

  ‘Why don’t you come with us?’ asked Estelle.

  ‘They’re too close and too many not to come after us. Go.’

  Tannhauser turned away so as not to delay them. He glanced at what was left in the wagon. Altan’s gear. A loaded crossbow. The armour. A skin of wine. Three pole arms. He took the two halberds and the skin of wine and turned to watch them leave.

  The Infant stumped into the dark with his children and the woman he loved. Carla watched him from over the giant’s shoulder. She knew what he needed.

  She turned away.

  Tannhauser looked for Grégoire.

  The boy had pulled the spear from Clementine’s flank and cut th
e traces, and dressed the wound with axle grease. He was trying to hoist the collar from Clementine’s neck. Tannhauser went over and set down the gear and helped him. Clementine laid her head down with a sigh. Shivers trembled beneath her hide. She was gored through the gut. Grégoire started sobbing. Tannhauser pulled him away.

  ‘Go with Grymonde and the others. Take these halberds.’

  ‘Will she suffer?’

  ‘No. Now go.’

  Tannhauser turned and saw Juste running towards him with a Pilgrim in pursuit, a javelin cocked above his shoulder for the throw. Tannhauser ran to the wagon and snatched and levelled the crossbow. As the Pilgrim brought his arm over, Tannhauser shot him through the armpit. The spear faltered; but it flew.

  Pilgrim and boy went down at the same time.

  Tannhauser dropped the crossbow and ran behind the wagon. More men emerged from the side street and yelled at those waiting at the crossroads beyond the church.

  Juste was pierced through the upper back and trying to get to his knees. The weight of the shaft caused the javelin to flop sideways and the pain drove him down.

  Tannahuser drew his sword and laid it on the wagon and took the spontone.

  A musket boomed. Too far away for smoke or pan flash. He heard screams.

  Grégoire’s screams.

  Tannahuser saw him squirming, in Clementine’s blood and his own.

  Bone shards waved from beneath one leg of his new red breeches.

  The spear in Juste was tipped with a long, thin, triangular head. It had skated up over his left shoulder blade and pierced the upper chest, maybe the lung; they’d see.

  Tannhauser stooped and grabbed the shaft and put a foot on Juste’s back and drew the javelin out. He hefted it and caught it at the sweet spot and spun and cast it overarm, picking his man on the turn from among the three too slow to scatter. The javelin broached the burliest through the chest and the others turned tail.

  Tannhauser dragged Juste to his feet. The boy’s eyes were glassy.

  Tannhauser grabbed him by the jaw and bent over into his face.

  ‘Grégoire is dying. Go and cut a length of the traces and tie it round his leg.’

  He put a dagger in his hand and slapped him on the back and Juste staggered towards his friend. As he reached him, he skidded in the blood and fell by Grégoire. He rolled to his knees in the mire and scrabbled for one of the severed traces with his left hand. He cried out at the pain in his wounds, but turned it into a scream of defiance. He dragged the strap between his teeth to anchor it, and began to saw through the leather.

  Something uncorked in Tannhauser’s chest.

  His lads were down; and probably done.

  He let the something flow through him, lest he burst.

  Another musket shot. He turned sideways to offer the narrowest target. Two long guns. He saw the smoke plume at the crossroads. Dominic’s guards? He welcomed the rage. It scoured his exhaustion and grief. Pilgrims emerged from the side street with the steadiness of frightened men who had determined to be brave. About a dozen. Three ranks. Four spears out front. He let them come on until they blocked the distant muskets.

  Grégoire fell silent.

  Tannhauser took a scythe grip on the spontone.

  ‘Allahu akabar.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  The Hanged Man

  CARLA FELT GRYMONDE’S pain throb through the massive heart that hammered at her ribs through his shirt. She had seen many die with gut wounds. At the Hospital in Malta, they had set such unfortunates aside without spending any effort to save them, for such efforts would have been futile. The contents of his intestines were corroding him from within. His stomach was already as stiff as an oak board. He made no complaint. His determination to spare her the slightest discomfort was complete, as if at last he had a task he could take pride in. Compared to the wagon his arms were a feather bed and she was glad of them; yet whatever the two mad men might claim, she knew her weight exacerbated his agony and hastened his end, and she felt guilty.

  She heard a gunshot somewhere in the darkness of the city behind them.

  She looked back and saw nothing. They had turned north towards the river. She looked ahead. Hugon was bent under the weight of his baggage. Both lanterns clanked in one hand; he hefted her violl in the other. She would have left the violl, and so would Mattias, but her instinct knew why Hugon had chosen to bring it. He wasn’t going to abandon a dream. The twins they called the Mice walked behind him. Pascale had disappeared.

  ‘Grymonde, please, set me down. I can walk.’

  ‘Carla, prithee. If I set you down I will kneel in the dirt and wait for your husband to kill me.’ He took a breath. ‘A shame I would rather forego.’

  ‘He’ll help you to the quay.’

  ‘If he hadn’t needed me to replace that old grey mare, he’d have cut my throat with no more thought than he’ll waste on cutting hers.’

  Carla did not dispute this. ‘You shouldn’t talk.’

  ‘It’s the last conversation I’ll ever have. And more precious than all the conversation I had in my life. Though, since most was of a base nature, perhaps that’s saying little.’

  ‘I don’t believe that from someone raised by Alice.’

  ‘Didn’t we have precious conversations, too?’ asked Estelle.

  ‘Is a dying man to be denied his morbid rhetoric?’

  Carla couldn’t help but study Grymonde’s face; it was inches from hers. His strange yeasty smell came off him in waves. Sweat ran down his brow and funnelled into the ridges melted in his sockets, from whose roofs the drips fell to pool in the scarred floors. Runnels spilled over his cheeks as he took each step. She remembered the wild brown eyes that had spared her life on a whim. More than a whim. Her baby had been born into his murderous hands. The brown eyes were gone, and the murderous hands were carrying them both through as dark a night as anyone alive could have known. It was a story she didn’t understand; for some other, untold, story lay underneath it; but one day she would. The stories were in her.

  ‘What does he mean?’ asked Estelle, from above Grymonde’s head.

  ‘He means he overstates his case, as a means to ignoring our advice.’

  ‘Very well, I give in. You’re both right. My mother’s words I didn’t listen to, though I heard them And your words, La Rossa, were the crown jewels of my kingdom.’

  ‘Truly?’ demanded Estelle.

  Carla looked up at her fierce little face.

  ‘I remember every word you ever spoke, for I played them in my mind like music on many a dark night, and on many a sunny day, and the day and the night both were made brighter.’

  ‘I remember them, too,’ said Estelle. ‘But I bet you can’t remember every one.’

  Grymonde bared his teeth at Carla, in what she supposed was a grin.

  ‘Just the same as the grandmother.’

  Carla said, ‘So you still won’t say what you know.’

  ‘I know what we have, now, she and I. We don’t want our wings to become limbs. One day, perhaps, but I’ll leave you to be the judge of that. If you’ll do that for me.’

  Carla swallowed on a sudden sob. She nodded. He couldn’t see, but he felt her.

  ‘Carla, why doesn’t he say what he means?’

  ‘He does say what he means. I’ll explain when we get home. When you’re older.’

  Estelle considered this.

  ‘Does that mean home is very, very far away?’

  Grymonde laughed. Carla laughed, too. Pain cut them both short.

  ‘It’s far but not that far,’ said Carla. ‘I’m happy you’re coming.’

  ‘Tannzer said I could carry Amparo home.’

  ‘You already have,’ said Carla. ‘And you’ll carry her farther still.’

  ‘It was the wren saved us, if you think about it,’ said Grymonde.

  Carla did. It was true; in many ways. She wondered if Grymonde would have killed her if she hadn’t been pregnant. She wondered if that was what
he meant. She didn’t ask.

  ‘Not the wren, the nightingale,’ said Estelle.

  ‘I’ve never seen a nightingale, and nor have you, but I can tell a wren when I see one.’ He gave a short laugh. ‘Can you?’

  ‘No,’ said Estelle, ‘but you can’t see Amparo and I can.’

  ‘Exactly, my darling, which is why I see a wren in my brain. As long as the wren is alive, we’re winning.’

  Pascale emerged from the dark.

  ‘Militia have come through the houses. We’ll cut across the market.’

  Carla looked across a broad patch of cobbled ground. They would be exposed.

  ‘It’s shorter,’ said Pascale. ‘That light by the stable, and we’re almost there.’

  She waved Hugon towards a glow and Hugon seemed to think it a fair idea. Estelle somehow turned Grymonde after him, and they moved out across the paled cobbles.

  Pascale skipped beside them, looking back and forth through the dark like some feral cat: absolutely afraid, absolutely alive, absolutely determined to get through the night.

  ‘The cards, you see,’ said Grymonde. ‘My mother said it was bad luck to look at another’s draw, for you don’t know what it is you’re looking at, and you’ll read only your own doom. How right she was. But I won’t say the judgement has been harsh, for I deserved worse.’ His teeth gaped into Carla’s face. ‘In fact, I’d say it’s been generous.’

  ‘How could it not be generous to the king of the Land of Plenty?’

  ‘Too late the king, and too late the plenty, and yet –’