Blood Ties (16 page)

‘I was there. I saw it buried.’

He hadn’t thought about that night at the crossroads in nineteen years. But now, in the question of their stares, he did – and remembered everything. How the one-handed man, that same man he had served wine to this evening, had leapt from a gibbet midden and plunged a dagger through his eye. How he’d fallen but not lost consciousness, his other eye open, unpierced, so he had not lost all his sight. All he had lost, in one moment of terrible pain, was his discrimination, his ability to care about anything he saw, or felt, or heard. One agonized moment, and all the events of his life, the triumphs, the cruelties, the men he’d killed, the women he’d taken, all turned into shadows dancing on a wall. Nothing worth talking about.

He remembered everything from that moment on. Saw again the head of Giancarlo Cibo, his master, severed by the flying sword. Saw the French executioner, Jean Rombaud, take the witch’s hand and bury it in the centre of the crossroads by the light of a full moon.

The silence extended so, in it, he remembered everything thereafter. How Rombaud and the others left, and the villagers came, thought him dead, took him when they realized he wasn’t and might be worth a ransom because of his rich clothes. A barber-surgeon removed the dagger lodged in his head. Somehow, to everyone’s surprise, it didn’t kill him, though death came close in the weeks that followed. But when he’d recovered and still wouldn’t speak, when they couldn’t find out how to profit by him, they turned him out onto the road. It led south, by diverse paths and ways, till one of them crossed that of a monk returning from pilgrimage, a kind man, who took him for charity and because his size was some protection on the road, taking him all the way to his order’s house in Livorno. He stayed on when the order was abolished and the Jesuits took over the house, and he had just carried on silently doing what he had done ever since a dagger had entered his eye and changed his world. He tended to the gardens, and served the travellers and pilgrims who rested there. If their plates needed food, he piled food onto them. If their goblets were empty, he filled them with wine. And if they needed to know where Anne Boleyn’s hand was buried, he told them.

He bent forward, poured wine, waited. He assumed that more words were coming, now he’d decided to speak. He didn’t mind waiting for them, he was comfortable with silence. It was the name he’d lived by for nearly twenty years, once he’d stopped being Heinrich von Solingen.

There was nothing Erik could do. The Fugger had been right, there were too many of them; Gianni, and the locket, always in the thick of his men. He’d clung to the lintel and listened to the extraordinary tale. He’d followed them to the harbour and right up to the ship, considered stowing aboard. No opportunities came and, anyway, a voice began to work in his head, an unfamiliar voice speaking of caution rather than immediate attack, telling him of a better way than discovery at sea and a watery grave.

So he watched the ship sail on the night tide, then rode for the barn on the outskirts of Livorno. Briefly, he told what had passed.

‘Then hell has broken its bounds.’

The Fugger sank down into the stale hay, his legs losing their ability to support him. The glimpse that had merely reminded him of his old enemy had been enough to spur him, vomiting, into the night. The thought that Heinrich von Solingen had triumphed over death – for it could only be him – took away all the little courage he had mustered. Erik, on learning who it was, merely whistled.

‘So I have seen the Bogey-Man.’ Von Solingen had been the stuff of nightmare in all their childhoods, a goad to good behaviour. ‘Well, I am glad I saw him leave on a ship.’ He leaned down to the Fugger, his face flushed with his excitement. ‘They all left, Fugger. Every man including that German monster. Do you know what that means?’

The Fugger barely shook his head.

‘It means they sent no message to Rome. No punishment for your escape. Gianni must be too busy with his great work. It means Maria will still be alive, till their return. It means we have time to break her out of this prison.’

Erik smiled. This was the thought that had occurred to him at the docks, why he had let the ship sail without him. Action delayed could lead to more glorious action.

The name of his daughter seemed to revive the Fugger. He struggled to his feet.

‘First, Jean must know of this, that the evil he nearly died to oppose is again upon the earth, incarnate in its most awful servant. Poor man, all he wants to do is have the rest he has earned. Yet I fear his sword must wake again in his quest.’

When the young man had helped him onto the horse then mounted behind him, he spoke one word.

‘Montalcino.’

They came through the woods just after dawn, for though the spring foliage was not yet far advanced, the trees would still shelter their approach. The rigour of a night spent in a ditch had stiffened Jean’s body, and each step was a jolt through his sinews, no matter the softness of the forest floor.

The track widened into a small clearing, the trees around it mainly sweet chestnut. The ground was covered in last year’s husks, the once green-furred shells now brown and cracked.

Anne paused, looked around them, smiled. ‘You were ambushed here once. We pelted you with chestnuts till you surrendered to us. Do you remember?’

Jean turned, dug the point of his stick in anew, leaned again. ‘I don’t. Who was “us”?’

‘All of us.’ Anne took the rope-wrapped bottle from around her neck, uncorked it, handed it to her father to drink. The morning air was chilly, but the sweat still showed on his face. ‘Erik, Maria … Jojo.’ She used Gianni’s childhood name, but it did not keep the shadow from her father’s eyes. She continued hurriedly. ‘You made us gather all our “weapons”, and Mother made them into a pie. Remember?’

‘Your mother used to make wondrous pies.’

Jean turned back to the path. He didn’t remember, didn’t really want to. More and more, it seemed impossible to separate the good memories from the bad.

‘Let’s rest here a little, Father. I’m tired.’

He didn’t look back this time, no smile for her caring lie. ‘No.’ He drank, handed back the bottle. ‘We go on. Whoever’s there may still be asleep and that will give us our chance. I’d like to be back in Montalcino by midnight.’

Midnight!
They had set out late and it had taken a day and a part of both nights to arrive here. And he wanted to be back inside the day!

He still calculates distances like a mercenary, by forced march
, she thought, as she watched him limp on down the path.

He moved quickly now, spurred on by the closeness of the goal, and it was not till the edge of the forest, under a copper beech that had once been one of her thrones, that she caught up with him. He had rested his shoulder against the trunk, his head angled around it. She knew his eyes were not for the long sight, that the building he stared at on the next rise was more blur than structure.

‘The Comet,’ he said, and the hope in his voice made her throat tighten.

Let it be as he wants
, she prayed,
Holy Mary, let him have his reward
.

She did not usually conjure the names of the Church. She knew so little about it, despite all her brother’s efforts to save her. But a mother and her suffering son she understood.

They left the shelter of the wood and began to move cautiously into the vineyard. The light was still pale but it was enough for Jean to see what was wrong.

‘Look at the roses, Anne. They have not cut them back. How will they give warning of disease?’ He pulled at one, sucked at the finger that bled. ‘And look at the vines. Unpruned, since we left. And the weeds!’ He swished at some with his stick and she could see his excitement. ‘Lots of work when we get back. Come, let us see what they have done to the Inn. If it is as neglected as the fields, then no one will be there. We can move straight back in.’

They had covered half the ground, were fifty paces from the building when the side gate banged open. They froze, had not even the time to sink into the red earth, before a man emerged and began relieving himself against the wall. He was singing and even though Jean could see the gawdy clothes he was wearing he didn’t need his eyes to tell him what the man was. The tune was familiar, even if the words had changed a little since Jean’s day.

The farm lass, the weaver’s trull

They both will bend for me.

For I am he, who’s fit for she

Who craves the Mer-cen-ree.

A mongrel dog began barking an accompaniment to the song and ran from the gate, pulled up a pace out of it by the chain around its neck. He continued barking, his muzzle toward the watchers, until the soldier voided himself on its head. It yelped and ran back inside, to be followed by the laughing, yawning man fumbling at the ties of his breeches.

When she turned back to him, Jean’s eyes were downcast, his body shaking slightly. ‘We have seen enough.’ His tone was flat, dead. ‘Let us return to the city.’

‘Father, we don’t know how many of them there are. He may be alone.’

‘Mercenaries are never alone.’

‘You were.’ She put a hand on his arm, felt the shudder within it. ‘Father, rest by that broken wall, by the pine there. I will take a closer look.’

‘You will not.’ The voice quavered. ‘I forbid it. These are dangerous men.’

‘And we live in dangerous times.’ She squeezed his arm. ‘Wait for me over there, Father. I will not be long.’

And she was gone, walking swiftly around the corner of the outer wall. Jean took a step after her, cursing. But his legs did not seem to want to work properly and it took an effort to make his way even the short distance to the broken wall. Falling behind it, he wondered for a moment why he had never knocked it down. Crouching, his heart seemed to beat loud enough to echo around the crumbling brick, the sound bringing another echo, a memory, called up by the resiney scent of the overhanging pine. For the flash of that moment, the dawn light faded, the moon came up, he was gazing down at Beck’s naked body, striped by silver beams and realizing he had never seen anything more beautiful in his whole life. They had made love here the first time and later, when his vow to Anne Boleyn had been fulfilled and they came back here to live, when his body had recovered from all the torments it had been put through, they had made love here again, often. That was why he had never knocked down or rebuilt this wall, never altered any part of it. Their love had been moulded here, of pine needles and brick dust. Their children were conceived here, form of their joined forms.

And as he thought on them, the memory flashed away, replaced by his concern for one of them. Raising his head cautiously, he stared at the corner she’d disappeared around, and tried to draw his daughter back.

They’d approached from the rear of the inn, so Anne now moved to its front, facing the road that led to Montepulciano. Half the gate hung by one hinge, while all that remained of the other were the brackets that had held it. Peeking round, Anne could see up the drive to the house. It was unrecognizable from the gravelled path that had welcomed travellers to what had reputedly been the finest tavern in Tuscany. The small cypresses that had lined the path were gone, mere hollows in the ground now. Lemon, bergamot and olive had filled the yard with their fragrance, but these too had been torn up, fed to the insatiable flame of the fires that smouldered all around. Bodies sprawled before these blackened patches, heads resting on saddles or field packs, plumed hats covering faces, hands stretched toward the flagons and cups that had rolled away from them. In this, the dawn hour, the soldiers’ sleep was heavy with snores and the occasional muttered phrase.

There were fifty at least and that meant there were even more within the house, though looking up, Anne realized that the roof would not give better protection than the sky, as most of it was gone. So a hundred men – and their camp followers, for skirts were dotted among the breeches – now called the Comet home, though no one would do to their own home what these scavengers had done to hers.

She began to turn away from this desecration, tears in her eyes, when something made her pause. It sounded like a voice, though she was sure it did not come from one of the soldiers or their concubines. No more than a whisper, yet it carried from beyond the yard. The voice was sexless, timeless and it said, distinctly, ‘Come.’

There was no reason for her to enter. There were perhaps a hundred and more reasons why she should not. She had seen all she needed, a ravaging of her childhood home, the end of her father’s hope. Only further despair awaited within the danger. Yet the voice was compelling and somehow did not seem to threaten her. Taking a deep breath, she entered.

The path was as occupied with bodies as the lawn and she picked a wandering path between the clumps. When she was halfway across, a soldier, younger than the rest, threw aside the thin jacket spread to part cover him, grabbing at her ankle with a little cry.

She froze there, waited. He held her, squeezing tight, muttering some plea or prayer and so she bent down to him, drew the jacket back up to his neck, touched his hot forehead with her cool hand. She whispered, ‘Sleep, child. Be at peace.’ The boy calmed, a smile came, and he released his grip on her. She moved on. When she reached the main door, she hesitated. The courtyard was to her left, the place where she had first heard the tale of the woman, the Queen, for whom she was named.

It drew her. She moved inside, passed more bodies to the entrance there. The door to the courtyard was gone, taken to feed some soldier’s fire. As she stepped through the gap she saw the magnificent chestnut tree had gone the same way, whittled down to a stump that reached blackened spars waist high from the cracked tiled floor. It was like a broken barrel, could only be empty, yet she stepped forward to look within it.

Something glinted in the charred depths. She stretched a finger to it, rubbed the ash away. A tiny cross lay there, but she did not pick it up immediately. She knew it, though it was grimy now, its silver tarnished with the years, blackened with the smoke which must have passed over it as they burnt the tree around it. Its twin cross struts made it unique, something their father had brought from France. He had given it to Gianni one day, and the boy had loved it wholly and utterly from the first moment.