Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris (41 page)

His mind roused itself. He wanted to get his hands on the lousy old porter, but not while hauling this cargo. He considered the officer’s suggestion, of an abbey in the Latin Quarter, but if he had to negotiate the militia he preferred to do so on the bridges and stow the children somewhere in the Ville, closer to Orlandu, and where the ultimate answers to the riddles would likely be found.

They passed Sainte-Geneviève where armed louts did indeed guard the gate. He could have brushed them aside, but that would only reveal the children’s location to others, and if carnage stained their threshold, the monks might well not make them welcome. They drove down a steep hill.

In this
quartier
evidence of slaughter was less flagrant and as they passed various colleges of the Sorbonne the streets became rowdy with students swilling wine and groping whores. The revelry was in no way inhibited by the smell of burned flesh. As Tannhauser reached the Place Maubert, the smell grew stronger. Here the festivities were general, served by the same entourage of hawkers, cooks and entertainers that had earlier grubbed for coppers on the Parvis. A malodorous haze lingered in the stifling air. A permanent gallows was sited in the square and its greasy ropes creaked under the weight of six fresh corpses. Nearby, an iron stake arose from a bed of coals, its chains supporting the charred remains of a double execution.

On the north side of the square Tannhauser spotted what he had come for.

‘Tell me,’ he said to his hidden passengers, ‘if a duck quacks and a dog barks, what sound does a rabbit make?’

Various solutions to the riddle were discussed, but none were deemed worthy.

‘Exactly: none. I want you to behave like a crate of rabbits.’

In the shade of their wooden booth five
sergents à verge
lounged around a table, picking at the remains of their dinner. They were working on a glazed earthen demijohn of red wine, and it appeared that Alois Frogier had done his share of the labour for he was dozing, elbows on the table and chin on his chest.

Tannhauser stopped the cart just out of earshot. The wall-eyed
sergent
saw him and gave Frogier a nudge and a muttered warning. Tannhauser stepped down and waited for Frogier. Frogier rubbed at a stain on his tunic and mustered an overwarm smile.

‘Frogier, I’m happy to find you both sated and refreshed.’

Frogier bowed. ‘Thus can I better discharge my responsibilities, your Excellency. As you know, they are many and grave.’

‘I could do with a nap myself. I’m here to return your bow.’

Frogier’s brow rose in happy surprise, then furrowed.

‘I don’t want any money back. It’s best for us both if I’m not seen with it.’

‘I am your loyal servant, as always.’

‘Walk me to the Petit Châtelet.’

Tannhauser led the horse and cart towards the spire of Notre-Dame and the river. Frogier tugged at his lip, then signalled his comrades at the table and trotted after him.

‘His Excellency has acquired some new companions.’

‘That needn’t concern you. What might is that you are missing four arrows.’

Frogier thought about this and turned pale as a cheese. ‘Four?’

‘The bodkins will point the curious towards the Châtelet’s archers, but I broke off the butt ends and burned them, so they can’t be traced to you.’

‘Who would trouble to trace four arrows in a bloodbath?’

‘It’s a matter of where they’ll be found. Events will warrant investigation, so you might consider losing the whole quiver. The confusion, Huguenots, thieves.’

‘Events?’

‘The less you know, the more sincerely will you be able to feign surprise, or more properly shock, when, in the course of your duties, you first hear the details.’

‘And I will hear these details, Excellency? Even on a day as grim as this?’

‘Without a doubt. Up to a point, though it’s a sharp one, we’re in this together. Accomplices, you might say. So unless we have an audience, you can drop the formalities, they grate on my nerves.’

Frogier was either a born philosopher or a veteran of many a risky and nefarious intrigue, for he absorbed these revelations with neither self-pity nor reproach.

‘Should I lose the bow too? No, to lose both would be harder to believe. I’ll leave the quiver – I’ll cut the strap – where some vagabond will find it. He’ll sell it on for the price of a drink and by dark it’ll be at least two steps removed.’

Tannhauser knew he was inviting more expense, but he wanted to cede Frogier a small victory to bind him tight.

‘Are your comrades sound?’

‘No man can be trusted in every circumstance, but, as you know, nothing strengthens the temper of any man’s soundness like a taste of gold.’

‘I’ll pay for the demijohn.’

‘You think we pay for wine?’

Something caught Frogier’s eye.

‘Let me have the bow and quiver.’

‘In the cart.’

Frogier retrieved the weapons. He blinked at the sight of the blood-soaked shafts. He looked at Tannhauser, but said nothing. He darted down an alley. He returned with the bow over his shoulder. The quiver was not to be seen. He nodded at the cart.

‘Unless that sheet is to shade them from the sun, it serves no purpose, other than to proclaim them fugitives.’

Tannhauser peeled the sheet back and bundled it.

‘Why, those are Tybaut’s girls,’ said Frogier.

‘I’m Anne Durant,’ volunteered Pascale.

‘And I’m Geneviève Lenoir,’ added Flore.

Frogier tugged on his tooth. ‘What are you doing with all these brats?’

Tannhauser had to detach himself from these children. They encumbered him, and he endangered them. Frogier was at least a devil he knew.

‘Escort us through the barricades to the Ville.’

‘The Ville?’ Frogier might have been asked to dip his head in a bucket of vomit. ‘Why?’

‘I need a safe haven for these youngsters, somewhere they’ll be fed and watered for a day or two, and guaranteed protection from all harm.’

‘In the Ville?’

‘I’d hoped to keep them nearby, but it’s their security that matters.’

‘I suppose they’re heretics.’

‘They’re of no significance to anyone but me.’

‘My older sister, Irène. She lives in the City, on the quay at Saint-Landry.’

‘A husband?’

‘I arranged to have him hanged.’

‘With Irène’s approval?’

‘At her request. He was too fond of using his belt, and he was a Scotsman, so there were two good reasons to see him swing.’

‘What’s her occupation?’

‘The unkind might whisper, indeed they did, that there was a third and even better reason. This Scotsman, with whose tragic fate you are acquainted, owned a small hostel. Under the new ownership of my sister, the business has flourished. She caters to lawyers from the provinces, but as of this morning, there’s a room or two unoccupied.’

‘No one but she and we must know the children are there.’

‘My sister drives a hard bargain.’

‘Here’s my bargain with you. If I find them safe when I collect them, I’ll pay you well. If I don’t, I’ll strangle you with your own bowstring.’

At the Petit Châtelet, Frogier left Tannhauser in the wide, arched passageway and he went to report the theft of his quiver by villains unknown. The
sergents
, present in some force, seemed unhappy with their lot, tense and resentful on what should have been a dozy Sunday. Like Frogier they were too habitually steeped in corruption to burn with the blood fever. They cast glances at Tannhauser and his passengers, but made no approach.

Tannhauser looked through the northern arch of the passageway. On the short street occupying the bridge lay a pyramid of corpses, glazed in their own gore and left to bake as if by some homicidal pastryman. Apart from that, it was deserted. At the far end he saw why, and why the
sergents
were out of sorts. A section of militia stood guarding their chain with the look of men who believed their mission had been etched in stone by the finger of God.

Tannhauser chanced a glance at his young charges. All five were arrayed behind one side of the cart, staring at him with a bleak unanimity of reproach. He attempted a warm smile, which felt more in the way of a grimace, and turned away.

Frogier returned, adjusting the sling on a new quiver.

‘One of our men wounded one of the militia in some dispute over God knows what. Everybody hates the police. Who knows why? He’ll live, unless the wound putrefies, but until they receive orders from higher authority than any they recognise here, they claim jurisdiction over the bridge. In short, I cannot take you across.’

‘Fall in behind me.’

Before the
sergent
could object Tannhauser led Clementine out onto the bridge. The militiamen roused themselves. Eight of them, some bearing the stains of the day’s work. In the normal course, they wielded little power over their own lives and none over anyone else’s. Now that the town was theirs for a day, they were making the most of it. All eight wore red and white ribbons tied around their arms.

Their evident leader sat with his legs dangling from the top of a large cask, perhaps with the purpose of lending a good six inches to his height, for even by local standards he was uncommonly short. He wore a helmet adorned with a goose feather and across his lap he held a stock whip. A man who cherished his hate and felt the better for it. The cask was placed behind the centre of the chain. A band of ragamuffins roistered about beyond the militiamen. They stopped to watch as Tannhauser approached.

He stopped halfway across the bridge. He took his rifle from the cart and made a display of checking the priming and lowering the dog onto the pan cover. A shuffling of feet spread through the line of militia.

‘Stay here. If I shoot, get the children to the gatehouse.’

Tannhauser cradled the rifle and walked to the man on the cask.

‘Mattias Tannhauser, military adviser and diplomatic envoy to His Highness Henri, Duc d’Anjou. The correct form of address is “Excellency”. Who are you?’

The man shifted on his seat with unease, unwilling to face the humiliation of climbing down yet sensing that it might be wise. He ventured a seated bow.

‘Ensign Jean Bonnett, Excellency, for God and His Majesty the King.’

Some of the louts repeated this last phrase. Tannhauser stared them down.

‘His Majesty didn’t order the militia to defy the Châtelet. Nor did he order this butchery.’

‘That’s a rumour spread by Protestant spies,’ said Bonnett.

‘Watch your tongue. And “Excellency” will do.’

‘I meant only that perhaps his Excellency had been misled by –’

‘I want to speak to Bernard Garnier.’

‘He’s not here, Excellency. In his absence, I speak for the captain.’

‘I will speak to him in person.’

‘He was called to the sixteenth, across the river, there’s been a most horrible massacre of our valiant comrades –’

‘Send a man to fetch him.’

‘That could take some time, Excellency.’

‘We will wait.’

‘We’re under siege, Excellency, I’m not sure I can spare a man.’

Tannhauser stabbed him in the chest with the barrel of the rifle. Bonnett grunted and tumbled head-first over the rear of the cask and disappeared. From the gatehouse behind him, and a variety of spectators in the windows of the overlooking houses, came squalls of laughter. The ragamuffins took this as leave to join in.

‘Send a man,’ repeated Tannhauser.

He turned and strolled back to the cart. He smiled at the children. Frogier gaped.

Pascale said, ‘Isn’t it dangerous to turn your back on them?’

‘If I stayed to face Bonnett I’d be back where I started. He now has an easy choice: he can send for Garnier. His other choice is to cross the chain and confront me. If the latter, I’ll see it in your faces.’

‘What if he just sits back on his barrel and does nothing?’ asked Pascale.

‘Let’s bless our good fortune you’re not in the militia.’

‘Bonnett is sending a man,’ reported Juste.

‘Why didn’t you just tell him to let us pass?’ asked Pascale.

‘I want a pass from Garnier. If he spares you once, he’ll likely do so again should your paths cross.’

As Tannhauser made the rifle safe he noted they had stopped by an eating house. It was closed. A man watched the scene on the bridge from an upper window.

‘How much to feed five children and two loyal servants of the King?’

‘What price to a man’s soul if he honour not the Sabbath –?’

Frogier said, ‘Jean, don’t make us break the door down.’

They went indoors and Pascale forced Juste to change his seat twice, first when he claimed a spot next to his sweetheart, whereupon she elbowed her way in between them, and again when she insisted that Tannhauser sit between herself and Flore. The freeing of the necessary space banished Juste to the opposing bench with the Mice, at as far a remove from his love as the table permitted. Pascale peeled off the kidskin gloves she’d found in the stables. Flore stared at the ink on Pascale’s fingers. She started crying. Juste stood up as if to comfort her, but Tannhauser shook his head in a signal to let her be.

Frogier pulled up a stool at the head of the table and polished his tooth. The cook, belying his qualms about the Sabbath, had already been busy, and probably short of customers, for in addition to a cold flesh pie made of minced pork, small birds and gobbets of rabbit, he laid out a tray of cheese tartlets, a charger of stuffed eggs, a blankmanger of rice with dark chicken meat, and a pottage of sundry beef innards that Tannhauser sniffed and rejected on behalf of all for fear of the flux. Jugs of wine arrived.

Tannhauser crossed himself. The children sat on the benches with their hands clasped in their laps, beset by a shared melancholy and showing no appetite for the spread. Frogier began to shovel blankmanger onto his platter. Tannhauser felt obliged to raise the table’s spirits.

‘I’m glad of the chance to enjoy this unexpected dinner with you –’

‘Because it will be the last chance we ever have?’ said Pascale.

Flore stifled a sob.

‘Nonsense,’ said Tannhauser. ‘It’s the first of many, or, in our case, the second. There, you see? We’ll have all manner of dinners. And one day we’ll look back and say “Remember when we ate stuffed eggs on the Petit Pont, on Saint Bartholomew’s Day?”’