Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris (79 page)

‘They’re all gone.’ Irène’s face was gaunt. ‘Except for the bodies.’

Tannhauser took the candle from her hand.

The
sergent
’s lower face had been shot away. There was a large-bore hole not far below the nape of his neck. A rifle ball. The range had been so close as to incinerate a good swath of shirt and hair. Tannhauser looked up the stair. Blackness.

He went up quickly. Thickened gore greased the upper steps and shone across the landing in a burgundy jelly. A second body lay folded backwards from his knees, his thighs and belly similarly caked.

Pascale had killed two
sergents
. Juste might have shot one; but his gut didn’t believe it. She hadn’t just wanted some fellowship. She had wanted the knowledge.

The front bedroom was empty. In the rear bedroom, the moonlight was enough to see a body under a sheet. He pulled it down. Flore. He had liked her. Juste had loved her. So had Pascale. He replaced the sheet. There were no other dead.

Juste and the Mice were alive. Pascale had killed Le Tellier’s men before they could carry out their orders; by the looks of it, before they’d had a chance to speak.

He set the candle on the empty bed and went to the window.

He saw no blood on the sill. He saw the two barges. Across the water, torches moved and braziers burned on the Place de Grève. The militia’s numbers had much thinned since this afternoon, but there were still at least three score of them, presumably as a reserve. There would be scores more in the surrounding streets.

Where would the children go?

He remembered Estelle. He turned to go and fetch her.

A word was smeared in blood on the wall above the candle.

‘MICE.’

Tannhauser brought Estelle and Amparo indoors.

Irène grimaced at both of them.

‘I’m thirsty,’ said Estelle.

‘We’ll go in the kitchen,’ he said. ‘Irène, fetch us some water.’

Irène held her tongue. She provided water. Tannhauser propped the crossbow by the door. He and Estelle drank. Amparo would soon need a breast.

‘Mice,’ he muttered.

‘Little swine. My floors are ruined, too.’

‘Buy a mop. What happened to the third
sergent
?’

‘Anne ran after him down the street. When she came back, she said he was dead.’

The body in the midden. Tannhauser felt a surge of admiration.

‘So she killed all three.’

‘She almost killed me, too.’

Tannhauser wondered why she hadn’t. Irène read him.

‘She said she didn’t know if you would.’

‘Then you’re in my debt. When did they leave?’

‘Just as it turned dark.’

Almost three hours ago. A long time to hide; enough to get elsewhere. Tybaut the pimp. ‘MICE’ meant they had gone to Tybaut’s. Wherever that was. Time scourged him. A nose to a nose. Father Pierre at Notre-Dame.

Irène hugged herself. ‘I’ve been here all night, alone with that corpse, waiting for Alois. Or you.’

‘No one will come from the Châtelet tonight.’

‘What are you going to do to me?’

‘Stay indoors. I’ll put the body in the street.’

‘Very thoughtful, I’m sure. What do I tell Alois?’

‘Frogier is dead.’

Irène put a hand to her mouth.

Tannhauser emptied the water down his throat. He set down the jug.

‘How did he die?’

‘In agony, in the dark.’

‘You bastard.’

‘Frogier promised the children safety. You took my gold for the same.’

‘I’ll see you hanged.’

‘I am no Scotsman.’

‘You’re all the same. Bloody bastards. You make me sick.’

Tannhauser felt a twinge in his back. He thought twice about the body.

Irène screeched, ‘I’ll see all of you hanged.’

‘Beware, Irène. The waters Frogier drowned in are deep enough to take you under, too. If questions come, claim you know nothing.’

‘I’ll have the lot of you. Your bloody children, too. I’ll go to Le Tellier.’

Irène folded over and flew back into the sideboard and twisted as she fell. The dull snap of the crossbow’s sinews accompanied her death, which was instant.

‘I think I got her in the heart,’ said Estelle.

More likely the aorta, given the rate she was bleeding, but Tannhauser didn’t quibble. Estelle bore the look of one who had swatted a wasp. She expected no censure. He had none to offer. In Irène’s death, he could only see the advantages, not least to his back. He checked on Amparo. She was blinking, but seemed unperturbed by the missile just released beneath her.

‘I made sure you weren’t in the way,’ said Estelle.

‘Good. The first rule of shooting at anything.’

He took the crossbow from her and recharged it.

‘She said she’d hang the children.’

‘Well, we couldn’t stand for that, could we?’

She followed him from the kitchen. He took the spare quiver from the corpse.

‘Where are we going now?’ asked Estelle.

‘To see a nose in Notre-Dame. Do you know a quiet way?’

‘Can we fly again?’

‘Fly? We’ll have to.’

Estelle took him through the Cloisters. They were deserted. Amparo began crying, with a surprising lustiness for one so tiny. Tannhauser was charmed. What spirit. Estelle murmured to her. She was still crying when they reached the front edge of the cathedral. He set down his gear and the candle and lifted Estelle from his shoulders.

‘I think she wants to face me,’ said Estelle.

She loosened the buttons on her shirt and turned Amparo around. She crouched against the wall in the candle light and murmured to the babe and she quieted.

Tannhauser took the crossbow and scouted the Parvis. All was quiet but for two militia guarding the central portal. Their pikes were propped against the archway. A lantern stood at their feet.

He returned and took Estelle’s hand and raised her up.

‘I’m going to send you into the cathedral. Wait for me near the font. Walk ahead of me with the candle.’

He followed two paces behind her, where even the small flame would blind them to his presence. The guards saw Estelle and roused themselves, though to curiosity rather than alertness. Another pair of stalwart citizens recruited to a giant evil.

Tannhauser stepped out, well to Estelle’s right, and levelled the crossbow.

‘The first to touch a weapon takes it in the cock. So does the first to speak.’

Both stared at the bolt. Neither moved.

‘You don’t have to die tonight. Think of your wives and a soft bed. You, take the lantern. Both of you, turn around and hold hands.’

They obeyed. Their hands grappled for each other as if seeking comfort.

‘Estelle, go inside.’

He watched Estelle through the portal. He took a pike.

‘Walk round the side of the church.’

He stopped them in the shadow of the south transept.

‘Ditch those helmets. Put the lantern down. Noses to the wall.’

They obeyed without letting go of each other. Tannhauser propped the crossbow and piked the first where his neck met the base of his skull. The second didn’t dare turn. As his comrade slid down the wall without a sound, he didn’t let go of his hand.

‘My God, I am most heartily sorry for having offended Thee and I –’

Tannhauser piked him. He stacked the pike and collected the lantern and the crossbow and returned to the Parvis. He left the lantern inside the portal and entered Notre-Dame.

Tannhauser scanned the cathedral for armed men and saw no men at all. Both aisles this side of the transept were more than half full of women and children, most gathered in clusters, some in pairs or stranded in lone anguish. Others, especially the children, slept on the benches or the tiles. There was a good deal of crying, crying that had been stripped down to its bones. While each voice was its own, the whole was strangely harmonious, like some choir of woe singing from an infinite choice of hymns.

He found Estelle by the font. Amparo was sucking a nipple on her flat, narrow chest. The sight took him aback. But both seemed content with the arrangement and neither seemed to find it unnatural, so he let it be.

He retreated to a dark alcove and disarmed the crossbow and stowed it with his two spare bolts and the
sergent
’s quiver. He stowed Altan’s bow and quiver in a darker spot. He disarmed the pistol and hid it with them. He unfastened the sleeves of the shirt tied about his hips. The sleeves were beslimed with gore and he stripped the clots from shoulder to wrist and wrung them out. He’d take Estelle and Amparo with him. Not the most apt of escorts when asking how to find a pimp’s den, especially Tybaut’s, but Father Pierre was used to squalid company.

The rest of the shirt was damp but not too bloody. He gave it a good flap. The white cross on the front was dark red, but Father Nose could make of that what he would. He pulled the shirt on. It was corrugated with gore and mocked his attempts to smooth it. He was as presentable as he was going to get. No, not quite.

He went to the baptismal font and crossed himself, then scrubbed his face in the Holy Water. From the change in its colour, he considered it well done.

Blood and Holy Water.

Carla would want Amparo baptised. The Church was uncompromising on baptism; one could say harsh. The babe’s soul could be whipped off to Limbo at any moment, doomed through all eternity never to see God, and all for want of a handful of water and words. What a very particular God He was. But who was he to argue?

‘Estelle, let me have Amparo.’

‘You want to hold her?’

‘I’m going to baptise her.’

He took the kidskin cradle from Estelle’s shirt. Amparo seemed to weigh close to nothing. Yet no weight so absolute had ever fallen on his heart. He raised her high in both hands and looked up at her face.

Hundreds of candles burned in the church behind her and filled its enormous vault with ochre smoke. What a beauty she was. Only pure love could weigh so much, and yet fill him with ecstasy. He had been right. Amparo did gentle the storm. He could have stood there for an hour. Amparo was not so patient. She started howling.

Tannhauser laughed. He lowered her and kissed her on the nose, or as nearly as he could without piercing her new skin with his bristles.

‘Ah, little Amparo doesn’t want to get wet. She wants her breast.’

Amparo was not consoled. He tilted her over the mouth of the font. He scooped a handful of murky water and poured it over her head.

‘Ego te baptizo Amparo, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.’

Tannhauser took the crying infant to his chest with one hand. He smiled.

‘We have saved her from Hell. Now we must save her from Paris.’

‘Tannzer? Will you baptise me?’

His smile widened. He looked down and Estelle beamed.

‘With pleasure. Lean over the font.’

He palmed water over Estelle’s tangled locks. They were clean. He was surprised.

‘Ego te baptizo Estelle, in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.’

‘Am I saved from Hell?’

‘The Devil will be disappointed, but yes, you are saved.’

The babe howled herself red, but he was loath to give her up so soon. He murmured to her, as he might to a fractious horse. Estelle grabbed his free forearm with both hands as if to stake her claim to his attention.

‘Hold tight,’ he said.

He lifted her feet from the floor and swung her ahead of him and started to walk. Estelle shrieked with pleasure and landed and clung on tighter.

‘Again!’

With one child thus entertained, he continued to mutter to Amparo in Turkish as he strode up the nave. The tiny screaming face was entirely captivating, but part of his mind turned to the practicalities. If Tybaut’s hovel wasn’t on the island, it was more likely on the Left Bank than the Right. It was unlikely he could reach either without bloodshed. Unless he took the priest with him. They’d lower the chains for a priest. A priest who consorted with pimps he could bend to his will.

‘Mattias?’

Tannhauser stopped and lowered Estelle. He didn’t dare turn.

His mind doubted the sound, that voice, for he wanted to hear it so badly he feared he must have imagined it. But his eyes filled with unmanly tears, and those he believed.

‘Carla! What are you doing here?’ Estelle let go of his arm. ‘We’ve been looking for you all over, and now we’ve found you.’

Still, Tannhauser didn’t move. He had mourned her. She had given birth to his child. Dungeon, fire and sword had stood between them, yet here they were, both of them, in the crucible of Hermes Trismegistus. All that stood between them now was his guilt.

‘Tannzer, look!’

Tannhauser’s heartbeat felt as fast as the babe’s. He suddenly felt conscious of his dire appearance. It was nothing she hadn’t seen before. At least he had washed his face; if he’d known she was going to be here, he’d have rinsed his mouth out, too. He turned.

Her gaze struck him to his inmost core.

Carla.

He held her stare for a long time.

She had always known him better than he knew her. He claimed few mysteries; hers were numberless. Her green eyes glittered, fire and tears. They were like wounds. He had been one of those who had inflicted them. The deepest of them. He loved her. With intense pain he loved her, and he knew he was unworthy of the honour. But she didn’t need his shame. What did she need? What could he give her?

A smile couldn’t hurt, could it?

A spirit too wild to be known or named flashed between them, the quintessence that bound their improbable and reckless union, and the hurt in her eyes retreated so completely he wondered if he had seen it at all.

It was all right then.

She still loved him.

His pain abated, but his love had never felt so tender or so fierce.

He took in her face, her body.

His heart squeezed and he took a deep breath.

She stood in the nave, trying not to sway in her bloodstained frock. She wasn’t exhausted. He’d seen her endure exhaustion for months at a time. She was frail, a state he had thought her incapable of attaining. The blood was hers, shed for their child. Her hair hung over her breast in a braid. He had never found her so beautiful.