Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris (64 page)

Tannhauser turned to the kneeling giant. On his back was a quiver of arrows and the horn bow that had belonged to Altan Savas. His scalp gaped open and oozed black gore. A shard of timber jutted from his outer thigh. He seemed near insensible.

‘I’m Mattias Tannhauser.’

Grymonde mumbled into his chest. Tannhauser stepped closer.

‘I’ve come to parley with the Infant.’

‘All you have found is the Traitor.’

The voice rumbled with anger and shame. He didn’t lift his head.

‘Is Carla alive?’

‘She was hale the last I saw of her.’

‘I’m told you love her.’

Grymonde gave a coarse laugh.

‘Aye, we’ve both of us had our hands between her legs.’

Did the man want to die? It was hard to tell; he hadn’t yet looked up.

‘Can I catch the Pilgrims before they reach the Hôtel Le Tellier?’

‘No. They were keen to get back to civilisation, where their victims don’t bite back.’

‘Why did they spare you?’

‘Spare me what?’

Grymonde raised his face towards Tannhauser.

His eyes had been bored out with something hot. The roasting skewer. His cheekbones, and the rims of the empty sockets, were blistered and deformed, the lids puckered and shrivelled like melted wax. They must have scooped out the burned eyeballs, for of them there was no trace. In places the orbits were charred to the bone. His pain must have been extreme, though his shame seemed to grieve him more.

‘Did they enjoy themselves?’ asked Tannhauser. ‘Did they have a good laugh?’

‘Does it please you, too, to mock me?’

‘I seek to gauge the depth of your rage.’

‘How deep is the ocean wide? How deep run the bowels of Hell?’

‘I came in hope of finding my wife. I’ll settle for finding a comrade.’

The grotesque features twisted in confusion. He choked a grunt of agony.

‘You came here to kill me.’

‘If revenge is not your balsam,’ said Tannhauser, ‘I can do you that favour.’

The Infant grinned. His teeth were hugely gapped.

‘She promised me the Devil’s own. She knows her man. As to balsam, give me my knives and cast me amid the throng, and see what riot a blinded bull can run.’

Tannhauser turned. Grégoire stood at the mouth of the alley, battling to restrain his dog. He beckoned him. He saw a line of youths, girls and boys both, holding slings, cudgels and blades. He glanced up and saw the shapes of others cut out against the stars.

‘Your friends suspect my intentions, and they look staunch.’

‘Children of Cockaigne!’ the man’s voice was thunder. ‘We have a new brother!’

‘This is my young friend Grégoire.’

‘Two new brothers! Brave Grégoire! And Mattias Tannhauser, of grim and murderous repute!’

Grymonde turned his face towards Tannhauser.

‘These bonds gall me more than the burns.’

Tannhauser laid the
spontone
on the ground. He removed the bolt and laid the crossbow by the spear. He grabbed the thick splinter in Grymonde’s leg and braced the thigh with his left hand. He hauled the shard free and tossed it in the fire pit. Grymonde made no sound. The wound leaked a thick black ooze.

‘The tower broke my fall. The only good use it was ever put to, apart from smearing a brace of Pilgrims into the mud.’

‘That bow belongs to my friend Altan Savas.’

‘They left it as a jest. Petit Christian. He said the image of the blind archer was poetic. It wasn’t that turd’s idea to take my eyes, but he gave the order.’

‘How many did Altan take with him?’

‘Six.’

‘You got off lightly.’

‘Another heartbeat and he’d have done for me. Strange, eh? Another heartbeat, and all these hearts would still be beating.’ Grymonde tossed his chin at the dead he could no longer see. ‘How many hearts have you stopped, today, chevalier?’

‘Today isn’t over.’

‘You’re not the type to leave the count to God.’

‘I can think of only one with a chance to reach His gates.’

‘Indulge a blind archer.’

‘Since I got out of bed, call it forty-five.’

‘Hellfire. Poor Paul.’

Tannhauser slit Grymonde’s bonds. He handed the dagger to Grégoire.

‘Go and cut us some fat meat, then help yourself.’

Grymonde rose to his feet, allowing himself some groans at the stiffness.

‘I’m taking the bow and quiver,’ said Tannhauser.

‘They’re no use to me.’

‘Hold still.’

Tannhauser manoeuvred the weapons over Grymonde’s head.

‘I’ll have the thumb ring, too. It’s on your finger.’

‘I don’t remember which hand.’

Grymonde fumbled, found the ring, handed it over.

‘Have you a woman handy with a needle?’ asked Tannhauser.

‘For a man whose wife is in the hands of swine, you don’t seem overly troubled.’

‘We could both use some stitches.’

‘What thorns await that little wren indeed. Hugon! Are you alive?’

Heads turned this way and that. A bent man of middle years answered.

‘He’s not here. Some as got shot on the tiles are still up there.’

‘Who’s that? Andri? Tell Jehanne she has some needlework to do. And bring me some knives. And some chairs. And don’t tell me that barrel is empty or there’ll be woe.’

They filled their bellies with pork and a wine of exceptional quality. Courtesy of Grégoire, the bald dog ate as well as they, while a pack of curs emerged from nowhere and petitioned the hare-lipped deity without satisfaction.

‘You said Carla was hale the last you saw her.’

‘Just before they cored my right eye.’

Tannhauser flinched at the thought that Carla had witnessed it.

‘Her face was the last thing I’ll ever see,’ said Grymonde. ‘Given I’ve cheated the pale mare for more years than I deserve, it was worth getting blinded for.’

‘Beyond basking in her gaze, did you note aught else?’

‘I’d say she had Bernard Garnier on a tight leash.’

Tannhauser considered the politics. An excellent stratagem.

He said, ‘I’ll drink to that.’

‘Aye. Who’d have thought we’d have something in common with that big fart?’

Tannhauser laughed and so did Grymonde, until the burns stalled him.

‘Did Carla say anything?’

‘She said,
Alice is with me
.’

‘What did that mean?’

‘It means they killed my mother.’

Tannhauser said nothing, his own memories stirring in the dark.

‘I’ll thank you to keep your pity,’ said Grymonde.

‘None was felt nor offered, nor will be.’

‘Good. After that, they ran. They’d won, but they knew they hadn’t conquered.’

Every facial gesture, every word, caused Grymonde’s seared nerves to jump in agony. Apart from muted gasps, the man made no complaint, but Tannhauser could see the burns were driving him to distraction. He had known many men thus scourged, such as Le Mas on the blood-caked rubble of Saint Elmo’s. Even such as he, the stoutest who ever wielded steel, could find their senses overwhelmed, and of those Grymonde was short already. From the pocket sewn into the inner face of his belt, Tannhauser dug out a pill of opium. It was wrapped in a patch of oilcloth, which he peeled and discarded.

‘Swallow this, with some wine. The taste is bitter but worth the bite.’

He put the soft black pill flecked with gold into Grymonde’s palm.

Grymonde rolled it between finger and thumb.

‘What is it?’

‘It is a Stone of Immortality. A physic of my own confection but devised by Petrus Grubenius, after the discoveries of Paracelsus.’

‘Yes, yes, I’m sure. What’s in it?’

‘It will give you a glimpse of what it’s like to exist as pure spirit.’

‘My mother gave me such glimpses all my life. I ignored them. What’s in it?’

‘Brandy, lemon oil, flaked gold –’

‘Pah.’

‘But mostly it’s a ball of raw opium –’

Grymonde popped it down his throat and swilled wine.

‘Is one enough? For a man of my constitution?’

‘We’ll see.’

A brisk woman called Jehanne turned up and dug an oval pebble from Tannhauser’s back and closed the wound with a sail-maker’s needle and thread. She did the same for Grymonde’s scalp and thigh, the bone of which appeared sound, and for some gashes over his ribs. Jehanne dabbed the burns to his face with a calamine salve, the white streaks of which augmented the unnaturalness of his features and filled his vacant orbits with a ghostly glow. No artist ever painted a more demoniac visage.

‘What do you know of the Hôtel Le Tellier?’ asked Tannhauser.

‘Naught worth stealing in there, naught worth the effort. Fifteen rooms, cellar to roof. Marcel lives alone – but for his valet, his cook, his housekeeper, Sergent Baro, and sometimes his son, Dominic, who’s a –’

‘I know Dominic.’

‘Dominic left my house with Carla and Garnier. Likely it was he killed Alice.’

Grymonde clawed his fingers.

‘The Hôtel Le Tellier,’ said Tannhauser.

‘Of custom there’s a lit lantern above the front porch, where a
sergent
stands watch, not to defend Le Tellier’s person – for anyone grand enough to assail one so grand would use more subtle means, and what’s a
sergent
but a sack of yellow shit? – but to ward off beaten wives and drunkards, and other rabble fool enough to seek justice at his door. The Châtelet’s three minutes at a run, ten to get help. At the back stands a high wall and an iron gate, and a door stout enough to stand a cannon shot. The door to the cellar matches it. The ground floor windows there are barred. What strength protects him tonight, I don’t know.’

‘Marcel can’t imagine the strength it would take to stop me, and so it won’t be there.’

‘No one’s ever dreamed of sacking a
commissaire
’s
hôtel
, except me, and even I could see no point to it.’

‘We have a point tonight,’ said Tannhauser. ‘As to doors, I understood this was a den of thieves. Have you not yet learned how to pick a lock?’

‘I can pick any lock in Paris, blind. Andri! What if the door’s bolted?’

‘The city’s in chaos,’ said Tannhauser. ‘Marcel is the chief of police. There’ll be comings and goings. The inner guard won’t bolt the door between every knock, and what’s a guard but a man looking forward to his bed? You say an attack has never been dreamed of. He’s not expecting the Mongols. At worst, he expects me.’

‘I doubt even that. Unless he knows, as I do, that you’re brain-cracked.’

‘Marcel has risen high,’ said Tannhauser, ‘but there are plenty stacked higher above him, and he has reason to fear their displeasure. He committed many treasons today. He stained his office. He betrayed the will of the Crown. He exploited the Pilgrims’ honour and blood. These wrongs he has concealed and must continue to conceal lest he lose his head. He won’t ask the Governor to call out his troops, let alone the King his Swiss Guard. And anything less won’t be enough.’

‘The Pilgrims –’

‘He can’t ask the Pilgrims to guard his
hôtel
. Against whom? He daren’t even call out his own police in any number.’

‘Marcel is wily,’ said Grymonde. ‘You don’t know him.’

‘I’ve known many like him and they’re all the same. He’s grubbed for power and believes that it serves him, but power has no master, only slaves. His power is the cage in which I will butcher him.’

Grymonde pursed grotesque lips but said no more.

‘Where is his office?’ said Tannhauser.

‘On the first floor of the south wing, overlooking the river.’

‘Is there a separate stair?’

‘No. A landing and a corridor from the main staircase.’

Grymonde sent Andri to fetch his tool bag.

‘What if he’s prepared to kill Carla, at any intrusion?’ asked Grymonde.

Tannhauser was surprised by a surge of cold rage.

He leaned towards Grymonde’s scourged face.

‘Is Marcel not the sort to pay someone like you to do it elsewhere?’

Grymonde flinched. ‘You gamble with her life.’

‘Don’t claim concerns you have no right to, blind archer, or I’ll leave you to bleat for your mother in the dark.’

Grymonde clenched his fists. His eyeless grimace was monstrous.

‘She’s your wife.’ He nodded. The fists relaxed. ‘I meant no disrespect.’

Tannhauser swallowed a mouthful of wine and watched him.

Grymonde’s scorched, painted and misshapen face twitched. He seemed assailed by many thoughts and many feelings. Tannhauser reminded himself of the man’s vile deeds. If all the men he had killed that day were to pool their crimes together, they would unlikely equal the crimes of Grymonde. Strangely, even so, he felt for him. And not because of the man’s dire afflictions. If his own path had been dark, Grymonde’s had been darker. What they had in common, Tannhauser realised, was that each of them knew that it need not have been so; and that it was not so because of the choices each, on his respective road, had made. Grymonde came to some conclusion and revealed what fragment he felt proper. He grinned.

‘You would have liked my mother, Alice. She spoke up for you.’

‘I’m honoured.’

‘Alice loved Carla.’ Grymonde shook his head. ‘And Mam guarded her affections, excepting babes. She knew, she’d learned, that to spend that treasury was to exhaust it. Carla’s coming was the sign she’d been waiting for. The sign that she could go in peace, because she knew there was at least one other to bear the flame. She was right, as always. There was no hurry. Carla loved her, too.’

Tannhauser did not question these riddles. The Stone of Immortality was working on the Infant’s brain. Tannhauser was undecided on the best course to take, after he had settled his affairs at the Hôtel Le Tellier. He and Carla would not be safe at the Louvre. There would be too many lies to tell, too many liars. To claim sanctuary at the Temple would likely require more bloodshed, with her in tow. A different set of lies, too, and there they would stick harder in his throat, though he would swallow them. His decision must wait on Carla’s needs. Pregnant as she was, he didn’t know how hard she could travel. For himself, he would rather get out of Paris.

‘The gates of the city are locked,’ he said. ‘Do you know any other way out? A smugglers’ tunnel or some such?’