Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris (65 page)

‘Smugglers don’t dig, they bribe,’ said Grymonde. ‘But the Porte Saint-Denis will open at midnight to let in the meat on the hoof, the grain for the mills. Thousands of animals. Wagons. The Châtelet doesn’t control the gates. The Governor’s troops and the tax collectors do. Collectors like to collect, if you can pay.’

‘I’ve been gathering wages all day.’

‘Aye, I didn’t find a sou on those bravos in the chapel.’

‘Marcel may have stationed a
sergent
or two, not to arrest me – to take word back, with a view to catching us out on the open road, which would be easy enough. But by then I’ll have sheathed my sword in his bowels. It’s the Pilgrims’ part I can’t foresee.’

‘You said they aren’t his dogs.’

‘Garnier is his own dog. The danger is, he may want to bite me.’

‘Why?’

‘This morning I killed seventeen militiamen.’

Grymonde laughed. He cursed as his blisters excruciated him.

‘This afternoon, when Garnier suspected as much, I made myself his friend.’

Tannhauser took out his whetstone and dipped it in his wine.

‘Marcel knows I killed the militiamen. If he wants to play out his blood feud in private – as he’s so far contrived to do with great care – he’ll keep that dagger up his sleeve. If he has to, he’ll draw it and tell Garnier, and Garnier is a leader of men in a way that Marcel is not. Garnier is a butcher and he is proud, a man of passion. He believes in himself, and in his purposes. His men believe in him, not in his rank. Garnier is not constrained by politics, and today they are all giddy on the taste of blood.’

Tannhauser refreshed the edges on his weapons. In the light of the coals the people of Cockaigne tended their dead. Lamentations broke out as this or that loved one was discovered.

‘When are we going to move?’ asked Grymonde.

‘When the Pilgrims have had time to get their pat on the back from Marcel. Then he’ll dismiss them. He might like them to camp on his doorstep, but it wouldn’t be politic.’

‘I’m tired of thinking. The cards are in play, so at best it’s vanity.’

‘The cards?’

‘Carla drew them. She drew you.
Anima Mundi
saw you coming.’

The tarot. Carla had been suspicious of the cards, he knew, but for that very reason he was not surprised that she might have a gift for their mysteries. He didn’t ask which card she had drawn to represent him.

‘I want to kill,’ said Grymonde. ‘And then die a violent death.’

Tannhauser saw no reason to dissuade him of these ambitions.

‘Strange as it may be,’ said Grymonde, ‘I feel quite cheerful.’

He did not attribute this happy fact to the opium; but that was no surprise.

Distant cries drifted across the sky.

There were still thousands of Huguenots to root out. The streets crawled with murderers. The murder gangs worried Tannhauser a good deal more than Le Tellier did.

‘You could hide,’ said Grymonde. ‘There’s places no
sergent
ever heard of. And one or two even Paul never knew.’

‘As I told Paul, hiding doesn’t suit my temper.’

‘Paul likes a good parley. He must have loved you.’

Tannhauser let that one lie. Grymonde had a revelation.

‘I need another of your Immortals. This one seems weak.’

His grin, rendered demonic by the whited sockets, suggested the contrary.

‘You want a violent death. You don’t deserve a painless one.’

‘When Carla sent me to find you,’ said Grymonde, ‘she feared you’d kill me on sight. She gave me a charm to protect me, a sort of spell.’

Tannhauser laid down the
spontone
. He drained his beaker.

‘Spit it out, my Infant, or you’ll have need of it.’

Grymonde laughed and flinched. He scratched the stitches in his scalp.

‘What was it now? A tiny bird. Andri! More wine! A wren. A crown of thorns.’

Beyond Grymonde’s bulk, Tannhauser saw a small, slender girl creep into the yard from the east. Damp, curly tresses cloaked her almost to her elbows. A heavy satchel hung at her hip. With both arms she carried a small rag bundle.

‘Aha, I have the spell exact,’ said Grymonde. ‘
A new nightingale awaits your thorns
.’

Tannhauser spoke her name without needing to think.

‘Amparo.’

‘My, my. Indeed it works like magic.’

Tannhauser felt a chill. Amparo was dead. She had died alone, in pain and terror and worse; for he had abandoned her. He had surrendered his weapons in the hope of protecting her; and he had been wrong. Carla knew it all. No. She hadn’t found Amparo’s corpse. She would never know what it had cost him. Carla had loved Amparo, no less than she loved him. Only Carla knew the meaning of the nightingale.

He grabbed Grymonde by the forearm.

‘A new nightingale?’

‘Another Immortal, I say. So strong a charm must be worth at least that.’

Tannhauser’s fingers dug into the densely muscled flesh.

‘Grymonde?’

Tannhauser looked over at the wild-haired girl. Her voice rose.

‘Grymonde!’

The girl seemed too overjoyed to dare believe that it was him.

‘La Rossa!’

La Rossa’s smile was radiant.

Grymonde’s joy equalled hers. His smile was horrific, though he could not know it. With his gouged and painted visage he looked like some gigantic and deranged harlequin. He lunged to his feet and turned and threw his massive hands wide. Tannhauser stood up and grabbed his shoulders to stop him; to turn him back; away from her.

‘My Infant, let me prepare the girl –’

La Rossa saw Grymonde full-on.

She screamed.

Her badly nourished face was gored by pity.

‘Where are your eyes?’ sobbed La Rossa. ‘Where are your eyes?’

Tannhauser dropped his hands as a sound took him by the throat.

The little bundle that La Rossa carried in her arms had started crying.

PASCALE DREAMED OF
Tannhauser.

She had thought of him while she lay on her pillow in the hope that she would, and she did. In certain wild flights, which even in sleep she strove to prolong, the dreams were erotic. Other flights were bloody, the two of them in league, and she loved those, too. In yet others, Tannhauser was wounded and alone, beset by monstrous beasts whose strength, though only thanks to number, exceeded his.

When she awoke, she remembered that his wife was dead. She thought:
I’m almost old enough to marry
. She kept her eyes closed and pictured the battle he had fought on the stairs outside her bedroom.

When her father had experimented with his drawings and carvings for a new typeface, for he thought most barely readable, he would give himself entirely to the moment. Everything he was. Tannhauser did the same – only more quickly, and intensely – when he killed. There was nothing in him but the killing. Thoughts, yes, but all those, too, devoted to that purpose. No fears, no doubts, no pity. Just movement – decision – flowing wherever it needed to, the way a swallow used its wings. It was that beautiful. How could he not love it? How could a swallow not love flying?

He said that seventeen men hadn’t stood a chance, and she felt she understood why. It wasn’t just that he knew more about fighting. They had brought too much that they didn’t need, including each other, and each other’s fears. They thought being together was enough. They’d decided what was going to happen, not what to do. Not one of them knew how to decide; not really. They knew only how to get killed.

She opened her eyes on the Mice, who sat facing each other on the second bed, playing some game with their fingers. Pascale lay on her side, watching them, waiting for the heaviness to leave her limbs. She had seen the twins before, on the streets, and had never paid them any mind, any more than she had to the thousands of other children living wretched lives. She recalled what Tannhauser had said, about their courage, and their timber being warped by men, and she felt ashamed. She wondered how a man so steeped in blood might see so much in two so small and so forlorn.

‘What are your names?’ she said.

They stopped their game as if caught doing something wrong. They didn’t speak.

‘Do you know how to talk?’

They looked at each other and came to some mutual but invisible decision.

‘What do you want us to say?’

‘We’ll say anything you like.’

‘You could tell me your names,’ said Pascale.

‘Our real names or our work names?’

Pascale remembered. They were trained to please. She didn’t like the idea of being pleased, at least, not just because someone felt that they should please her. But she didn’t expect she could change them if their timber was warped.

‘Your real names. My name is Pascale, my sister’s name is Flore.’

‘We know,’ said one. ‘I’m Marie.’

‘I’m Agnès. Tybaut said they weren’t very pretty names.’

‘He was wrong,’ said Pascale.

She remembered what Tannhauser had said about Clementine. It was the moment she had known that it was right to love him.

‘I would call your names the most beautiful.’

The Mice looked at each other.

‘Now you ask me something,’ said Pascale. ‘Anything.’

‘Is the funny man coming back?’

‘What funny man?’

Pascale remembered the eggs.

‘Tannhauser. Mattias. Yes, he’ll come back.’

Pascale tried to sound more certain than she was. And yet, how could he not?

‘He always comes back.’

She stretched and rolled onto her back. Flore wasn’t there. She felt alarmed.

‘Where’s Flore?’

‘She’s working in the other room, with Juste.’

Pascale leapt to her feet and opened the door. The palliasse laid out for Juste was empty. She stepped to the door opposite and grabbed the handle and stopped. She was breathing hard. Flore was her senior by a year, yet Pascale had always taken the lead. Usually, she would not have hesitated, but this was not usually. She felt betrayed. Working? Flore? They’d trifled with boys, rather Pascale had trifled for both of them, but they had never considered more than that. She squeezed the handle and hesitated again.

She was in charge. Tannhauser had left her in charge. He had taken her aside, not Flore, and though he had taken Juste, too, she knew he put his faith in her, not the boy. Juste was too tender hearted to be in charge. But not too tender hearted to be in the bedroom with her sister when he should have been on guard in the corridor. Against her instinct to charge in, she knocked. As she did so, she thought she heard another knock come from downstairs.

‘Flore it’s me. I’m coming in.’

She opened the door and charged in. Flore and Juste were asleep in each other’s arms on the bed. They were both fully clothed. Pascale held her tongue. They looked at peace. They looked lovely. Pascale took some deep breaths. She was about to turn and leave them alone when she heard voices from the street. Rough voices, impatient.

The window was open.

As she walked over she heard Irène say something about Captain Garnier. Her voice was stern; but theirs were harsh. Irène mentioned Frogier. So did they. Pascale stopped short of the casement and peered down over the edge of the sill.

At the front door stood three
sergents
. None was Frogier.

Frogier had turned them in.

They’d be killed like the rest.

Pascale closed her eyes. Fear filled her chest. Her mind raced. Be clear. Be quick. She was quick. She knew she was. Her stomach convulsed. Her limbs felt like skins of water. She took more deep breaths. Make the fear into strength. Turn the wheel. A fighter’s power. But thinking it didn’t make it happen. She had to act. As Tannhauser would act. She had to decide.

That was all.

She could do it. She would do it. Because Tannhauser had believed she could do it. That’s why he had told her these things. He hadn’t told Flore. He hadn’t told Juste. He had told her, because he knew she was a fighter. Who in the world would know a fighter better than he?

‘I am a fighter.’

Decide and do. Do anything.

She ran to the bed and shook Flore awake and clamped a hand over her mouth. As Flore woke, so did Juste, mortified. He opened his mouth to utter some explanation or apology but Pascale shushed him. She kept her voice low, but she kept it fierce.

‘There are three
sergents
at the front door. We’re leaving by the back window.’

Pascale ran back into her room, where the window was closed to block out the sound of the drunks across the river. She saw the saddle wallets and the holstered pistols. She saw the rifle propped against the wall. She took the rifle and lowered the hammer to the wheel and laid it on her bed. She wrapped her belt and dagger around her waist.

Her limbs were not watery any more.

‘Stand up, now,’ she said.

The twins obeyed.

‘I’m going to drop you from the window into the garden. It’s a game. First Marie, then Agnès. Stand by the window.’

Pascale opened the window. The river was tinged red by the dying sun. On the other side, they were still throwing corpses into the water from the wharf.
That’s why they need to be drunk
, she thought. On this side, the banked quays of the Port Saint-Landry were deserted. The two moored barges were deserted, too. She looked down. The drop was further than she thought. She turned to the twins, who stood side by side. She took the first girl under the armpits.

‘Close your eyes until I say open them. Agnès, you watch to see how it’s done.’

‘I’m Agnès,’ said the girl Pascale already held. She closed her eyes.

‘Then you’ll go first, Agnès.’

She sat Agnès on the sill. The girl was even lighter than she looked.

‘Tuck your legs up and swing around, outside. Good girl. Now turn over on your belly, I’ll hold you, don’t be frightened.’

Agnès did as she was told without a murmur and didn’t open her eyes. Pascale was glad, yet her gut turned as she sensed why the girl was so unnaturally pliable.

‘Good. I’m going to hold you out of the window by your arms. Don’t be afraid.’