Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris (25 page)

‘If this old girl has to come out there she’ll make you plant that kiss on her arse.’

Grymonde beamed with pride.

‘And who’s that you’ve got with you? Has she no better manners?’

Carla took a breath, smoothed her stained gown, and steeled herself.

‘And now, with your permission,’ said Grymonde, ‘I will present my mother.’

THE NEAREST CHURCH
was ancient and much neglected. Tannhauser had passed it on the way from the Place de Grève. Behind it he could see the spire of the priory of Sainte-Croix, but he was not in the mood to talk his way to the top of a ladder of monks.

The church was small and of plain rectangular design, without a transept or chapels. It was empty but for two old women praying. Two decrepit wooden rails either side of the nave separated the narthex from the pews. On the left of the narthex was a stone baptismal font, the sight of which sickened him. There was only one other exit, a door in the wall of the southern aisle just short of the raised chancel, where burned a red sanctuary lamp strung from a chain. He found the door ajar. He followed a corridor past a locked sacristy and through a second door, also ajar, into a small adjoining house. In the front room he found a priest bibbing wine for breakfast.

The priest wore nose-glasses. On the table before him were sheets of paper, quill and ink. He looked to be around forty, with nothing to cover the dome of his head but memories. His face suggested a bilious disposition. He was tall and thin, as if, apart from wine, life offered little to please him. He did not notice Tannhauser enter.

‘Mattias Tannhauser, Chevalier Magistral of the Order of Saint John the Baptist.’

The priest’s reaction was of such blind fear that he spilled most of the wine down the front of his cassock. He jumped to his feet and clapped one hand to his chest.

‘Forgive this intrusion, but if you are the curé I must ask of you a sacred and urgent service.’

On the wall behind the priest was a portrait of a man in the red hat and robes of a cardinal, who sat on a gilded chair with an altar boy standing at his side. Despite the artist’s efforts to flatter his subject, the cardinal’s features evoked those of an ageing madam in a waterfront brothel. Though not explicit, the staging of the piece suggested that the cardinal was fondling the boy’s arse, and the boy’s expression lent credence to this interpretation. When he looked back down at the priest, Tannhauser noted a distinct resemblance to both cardinal and boy, as if the one had matured into the other.

The priest removed his nose-glasses and took in the fresh bloodstains on the Maltese Cross. He concluded that, despite general appearances, this brute was unlikely to kill him, mopped the wine from his chin and gave a short bow.

‘Good morning, chevalier. Father Philippe La Fosse.’

Tannhauser stared at the priest for a while. His mind was blank.

‘How can I help you?’ asked La Fosse. ‘Chevalier?’

‘My wife has been murdered.’

‘Your wife? I am horrified –’

‘She lies not far from this church, indeed it’s possible she attended Mass on recent occasions. She may even have discussed a baptism. She was in late pregnancy.’

The priest’s brow furrowed with the bland compassion required by his vocation.

‘I recollect no such woman, I’m afraid. And this is not the parish church, so I doubt she would have come here. Sainte-Cécile is a chapel attached to the priory of Sainte-Croix, though it is open to the public on Sundays and Solemnities.’

‘Be that as it may, I’d be grateful if you’d rouse some servants to fetch her body here, at once. A woman with a strong stomach to wash her. I want a good stout coffin lined with lead. I’ll be taking her home and it’s far. A decent shroud, the appropriate sacraments, a requiem, so forth. To rest in a church would comfort her soul and keep her from further desecration. The rats. It would also comfort me.’

La Fosse fluttered his fingers. His sympathy was genuine enough, but not so deep as to encompass unforeseen labours. He produced a kindly but regretful smile.

‘This is rather a shabby old place, and Paris hardly lacks for splendid churches –’

‘Christ was not impressed by splendour. Neither was Carla.’

‘As for a lead-lined coffin –’

‘This is a fat parish in a fat city. There are dozens of such coffins to be had. The rich fancy it improves their chances of Paradise. I just want to avoid the smell of her rotting.’ He dropped half an ounce of Spanish gold on the table. ‘For that I could buy a coffin lined with silver.’ He added a second double pistole. ‘For the poor box.’

The difficulties vanished as quickly as the gold.

‘I will see to it personally. For a modest donation the priory provides a most beautiful six-voice requiem. Exquisite boys. They would break the stoniest heart.’

Tannhauser’s heart was broken enough.

‘An honest man mourns without witnesses.’

‘As you wish.’

Tannhauser thought of Carla’s love for music.

‘No. A chant may suit after all. I’ll reconsider these details when I return.’

‘Where will my servants find your good wife?’

‘In a bedchamber on the first floor of the Hôtel D’Aubray.’

La Fosse turned a shade redder. He leaned one hand on the table.

‘Your wife was the guest of Madame D’Aubray?’

La Fosse was shocked into frantic cogitation. Tannhauser could read none of it. Priests hid their thoughts as a matter of habit. La Fosse reclaimed his bland composure.

‘May I ask why your wife was there?’

‘She was invited to the royal wedding, by the Queen Mother. She was lodging with Madame D’Aubray, who was also invited.’

‘This is tragic. Tragic. Please, accept my heartfelt condolence.’

‘Carla is covered with canvas, in a bedchamber on the first floor. Your servants will find other bodies but they’re not my concern. Nor yours, unless charity so moves you.’

‘Others?’

‘Madame D’Aubray is hanging from a window. Her children and a manservant are inside. Carla’s bodyguard, too, but I’ll deal with his remains.’

With these further details, La Fosse put a hand to his brow.

‘Are you listening, Father?’

‘Yes, forgive me. I knew Symonne D’Aubray. This is appalling. A perfect gentlewoman. Her children, too? God’s mercy. When did this happen?’

‘I’d say two hours ago, while I was detained by events at the Louvre.’

‘The Louvre?’ He reappraised Tannhauser’s eminence. ‘The Protestant conspiracy? The attempt to assassinate the King?’

‘There was no such conspiracy nor any such attempt.’

‘But they’ve tried more than once before –’

‘Tonight we conspired against them.’

The priest’s eyes revisited the blackening stains on Tannhauser’s chest. He essayed an unctuous smile then abandoned it for fake woe.

‘What a terrible loss you have suffered in the service of God and the Crown –’

Tannhauser clenched his teeth. He wanted to stab the priest.

‘I serve neither God nor the Crown. I serve no one.’

‘I see.’ La Fosse stared down at his thumbs.

‘I do not even serve any purpose.’

Tannhauser put one hand over his face and squeezed his temples.

His chest felt tight. He could hardly remember why he had come here, why he was talking to this black-frocked lickspittle. Rage filled him. The rage was a skin stretched thin over other, more painful, sentiments he was less well equipped to contain. His mind was at war. Yet even war had the illusion of structure and intent, of outcomes to be feared or desired. His mind had none. He did not know where his next step should take him, still less where it would. Thoughts crowded at the borders of the emptiness inside him, held at bay because any one of them might unman him.

‘Is the babe doomed to Limbo?’ Tannhauser blurted the question without the awareness of having conceived it. ‘Our child had a soul. Surely the journey from the womb to the world does not in itself create the soul. Such a journey is long and dangerous. Only a soul would have the courage to attempt it.’

He dropped his hand. He clenched his fists by his thighs. He looked at La Fosse.

‘I know the Church has little mercy on babes who die without baptism. I baptised our first child, for that reason. But if our new babe was killed before it was born, it must be innocent of the crime of being born, which – and here I will agree with Mother Church – is the greatest crime of all. And if our child was thus unstained by Original Sin, wherefore should she, or he, go to Hell?’

He felt the urge to take La Fosse by the throat and squeeze him blue.

‘Would you send such a soul to Hell?’

‘No, no. Never. Of course not. Please, chevalier, don’t hurt me.’

‘To bring Carla back – even to have arrived in time to die in her defence – I would sacrifice every human being in Paris. She would damn me for the deed, perhaps for the thought. Yet I would take the axe and drag them to the block one by one, just to see her smile again.’

La Fosse cowered from his bloodstained ravings.

Tannhauser reined himself in.

‘Forgive me, Father. Thank you for taking charge of her remains. Adieu.’

He turned away. He felt obliged to give a reason.

‘I’ll be back later. I have to recover my guns.’

‘Brother Mattias, wait.’

Tannhauser felt La Fosse’s hand on his arm. He looked at him. His near departure had reassured the priest. He was no longer terrified.

‘Make your confession and I will hear it, for it will lighten the load you are carrying. Then you may take Holy Communion. Let the Body of Christ salve your wounds.’

‘Father, since I entered this city not a day ago I have killed six men who, in truth, I need not have killed at all. I advised the King’s first counsellor, with powerful and subtle logic, to slaughter the Huguenot elite. Their blood is on my hands. I neglected my wife and our unborn babe and both lie butchered and defiled. And there are murders yet to be accomplished, whose victims are yet unknown to me, which await my labours. These sins and more I claim and confess, some with shame, some with bitter remorse. But while I would accept your blessing, I cannot accept absolution, because most of my sins I repent not in the least particular.’

‘Do you think all sins absolved by the Church are sincerely repented?’

‘Those sins are not on my conscience.’

‘Such rare scruples do you credit.’

‘Carla loved her Faith. She honoured its sacraments. In memory of her, so will I. I won’t mock them in search of a comfort I do not deserve and will not find and do not need.’

‘Then I will give you my blessing, but first, stay awhile. Take some wine.’

‘I will take some information. The D’Aubray house was sacked by ruffians so low they stole a sack of flour as if it were saffron. They headed due west. I am a stranger here. From what district might such villains hail?’

‘Brother Mattias, I beg you, spare yourself any thought of seeking justice for this horrible crime, for you’ll never find it. Let God punish them, for His vengeance will be terrible. Mourn your wife. Take consolation in the works of Our Lord.’

‘You must have some notion.’

‘There are a dozen notorious enclaves of absolute lawlessness scattered all over the city, each a tangled knot of blind alleys and secret courtyards known only to its denizens and jealously guarded by the same. These wretches live like – well, one cannot even compare them to animals, for what vermin would peddle a boy’s virtue for a flagon of parsnip wine? – and in conditions of unspeakable degradation, godlessness and violence.’

Tannhauser walked to the table and poured wine from a jug. He drank.

‘As to the culprits you seek? No one would betray them to you. Even if you had the villain’s very name, as well might you plunge your hand into an anthill to find the ant that had stung you.’

‘Which of these hellholes are best placed for commerce with the court?’

‘You can’t mean the Louvre?’

‘We know who pays for the parsnip wine.’

‘Whatever I know is gleaned from gossip and can’t be trusted.’

‘Gossip will do.’

La Fosse struggled, as if making a decision he felt was unwise.

‘North of Les Halles – the market quarter – lies the worst such den in the city. The Yards, so called. It occupies the hill just south-west of Porte Saint-Denis, and more or less due west from the Hôtel D’Aubray.’

‘The Yards.’

It sounded as good a place as any to shake hands with the Devil.

‘No one from outside sets foot in the Yards, least of all the police. The children are as dangerous as the bite of a rabid dog. The women are worse. Two gentle Franciscans went into the Yards with nothing but love in their hearts, to spread the Word of Christ, to bring light into their darkness. They were never seen again. Within a day their robes and rosaries were on sale in the Place de Grève. Some say their meat was sold as pork in Les Halles. Can you imagine the implications for the resurrection of their bodies at the Last Judgement?’

La Fosse kissed the crucifix around his neck.

‘These place names mean nothing to me.’ Tannhauser indicated the scribe’s tools on the table. ‘Draw me up a map.’

La Fosse donned his glasses and chose a stripped quill from a jar. He dipped it and took a sheet of paper. He drew two well-spaced lines across the width of the page.

‘Let this represent the River Seine. And in the river, the City.’ He drew the island and marked a cross at either end. ‘Notre-Dame. Sainte-Chapelle.’ He dipped ink and drew bridges joining La Cité to the right bank. ‘From La Cité to La Ville, we have Pont Notre-Dame, Pont au Change, and the Millers’ Bridge, with the waterwheels.’ To the south he drew two more bridges. ‘And from La Cité to the Latin Quarter, we have the Petit Pont and the Pont Saint-Michel.’

‘Marvellous. Go on, Father.’

‘To the north of the river, the city walls of Charles the Fifth make a shape that we might compare to the shell of a duck egg.’ La Fosse drew a semi-ovoid spanning the whole north bank of the Seine. He dipped his quill. ‘But the older walls to the south enclose a space more proportionate to a quail’s egg. Or perhaps a hen’s.’