Blood Ties (17 page)

It had been hard between them for a while, as she knew it often was between fathers and sons. Erik had chafed under Haakon’s strict rule. But between Gianni and Jean it was different; especially after Gianni had returned from the monastery where Jean and Beck had reluctantly allowed the God-loving boy to go and study. He brought back not only an increased, almost fanatical devotion to God, but a pain lodged in his eyes. And his father’s godlessness now obsessed him. The cross had been Jean’s last attempt to reach his son with love.

She touched it now, let her fingers close over it, and the night filled with blossom and old smoke, the tiles under her feet became whole, and her mother was preparing food in the kitchen as Anne laid out the platters and knives on the table. But her mother was not singing and her father had gone to town, to trade he said, to hide, she’d said. And Gianni came to her, crying, the first time she’d seen that in years for he was near a man now. And he took her hand and pulled her up into the tree, leading her, climbing with one hand, holding her with the other, as if the two of them were one person, climbing like they used to, like they hadn’t done since Gianni came back from the monastery.

High up the branches, they heard their mother call them and he begged her with his eyes to stay silent. When Beck went inside again, he held the cross up before his tear-run face and said, ‘This will wait for me, Anne. I will come back for it one day. To prove that once he loved me.’ With swift strokes from a little hammer, he tacked the cross to the tree. And then he was gone, the supper growing cold for him, the cold spreading between her parents. And there was nothing Anne could do to warm it.

As the memory faded, she gasped. The cross was burning the centre of her palm, but she could not let it go, for the pain brought a vision of her brother, as he was now, the boy’s face hardened into a man’s. Determination was there, as it had always been, but cruelty was there too and something else – a zealot’s desire. She cried out as the metal scorched her but more because she looked into the vision’s eyes, her brother’s dark eyes, and knew he was about a great evil.

Then a voice suddenly spoke from beside her, the vision was snatched away and the cross slipped to the ground. Anne started, blinked and the voice spoke again.

‘There’s not enough work for us. We don’t need no new recruits.’

Anne turned to a woman, her skirt torn, its rear muddied, a ragged shawl around bony shoulders.

‘What?’ she whispered.

‘You heard!’ The woman’s voice was as hard as metal, the eyes dull and dead, the pox scars livid on her cheek. ‘Pretty thing like you? Think they’ll look at us after? Thought you’d cash in, eh? Leave now. Or I’ll do for you myself.’

The woman lifted her skirt, fingers moving to where steel gleamed. Anne stepped around her, bending to scoop up the cross from the ground. As she brushed past, the woman reached out, gripped the wrist that held it.

‘Heh, what’s this? What do you have here?’

The voice was louder now, and it brought mutterings from within, so Anne hit the woman as her mother had taught her to hit men, with the heel of her hand, striking up to the point of the chin. The woman’s head snapped back and Anne caught her before she fell, their faces close, sour breath from the woman’s lips, lowering her to the ground. Since voices came from the house now, she turned away, brushed past the stump, leapt and scrambled up and over the wall of the inner courtyard. The soldiers still slept beyond it and she threaded between them, leaving at the side gate, joining her father who rose anxiously from his hiding place.

‘By the Wounds, Anne, you were so long. I heard noise …’

‘Come. They have woken up.’

As she led him at a run through the vineyards, she heard a screech and then shouting from the house. They would be awake soon, all save the woman who could tell them what had happened. She would be unconscious a little longer, long enough for them to be deep within the forest.

As she ran, Anne opened her pouch and dropped the cross into it. She heard a clink as it nestled next to Guiseppe Toldo’s falcon.

Oh Gianni
, she thought,
what deeds are you about now?

They made Montalcino just after midnight, for Jean would barely rest and it was now Anne who struggled to match his stride. She had told him only a little of what she’d seen but it was enough to drive him forward, widening the distance between himself and his shattered dream. It had been such a little hope and, now it was crushed, there was only movement, pushing through his constant pain, the journey from despair to desired oblivion.

The gates were barred and the guards there did not recognize him, would not let him in. Fortunately, Giscard, Blaise de Monluc’s adjutant, was making his rounds, heard the argument, and intervened.

‘You must forgive them,’ the young officer drawled, ‘they are of this town and have not yet heard the story of the last triumph of Siena before its fall. The defence of the bastion at the Porta San Viene, the blowing of the tunnel, your sally to rescue your men! Quite brilliant, Monsieur. It was an honour to be there.’

He had climbed the steep streets with them, the final stretch to his billet sapping the last of Jean’s strength. For his status, he had been given a singular privilege – a whole room for himself and his family, in a house next to the monastery of San’ Agostino. He leaned against its door now, as the officer removed his plumed hat to bow.

‘The General expects you at the war council tomorrow. The call has gone throughout the land and men will soon be gathering around our standard. Siena may have fallen but the Republic lives on. We will need your skills and courage again. Captain Rombaud. Mademoiselle.’

He bowed, reserving an especially gallant smile for Anne, and departed.

Jean did not even have the will to mutter a curse. ‘Get me in, child,’ he said.

But there was no rest beyond the door that Haakon flung open.

‘Rombaud!’ he bellowed, enveloping the Frenchman in his huge arms, lifting him across the threshold. ‘You made good time, man. And you arrive just when the action begins, as always. Come, they have wine here, real wine, not like that vinegar we were drinking in Siena. Montalcino won its siege, so they have wine!’

Anne went straight to the back of the room, where blankets served as curtains over a bed. She did not even pause when she saw a bright-eyed Erik and the Fugger sat at the table. There was a more important question to ask first.

‘Mother, how are you?’

Beck’s eyes were open, if somewhat dull, her head was cool enough, her heartbeat steady. There was no mistaking the firmness in the hand that gripped Anne’s.

‘Well, child. Better than I have been in an age.’ She nodded past Anne to the room beyond. ‘They have brought me news of my Gianni.’

Anne started when she heard her brother’s name, felt a burning in her hand. She looked down. The outline of a cross was still there, its twin crossbeams clear.

Beck struggled to raise herself, Anne placing rolled blankets behind her. ‘Open the curtains. I need to hear what they are saying there. So do you.’

The Comet was disposed of in a few sad sentences, Jean summing up what Anne had told him. She had not mentioned her encounter in the courtyard. She had not been able to find words to describe it.

‘Well,’ Haakon grunted, ‘if the Sienese and French can win their fight, they will kick those Florentines out for us and we can go back.’

‘Is that the action you are so excited about, Haakon?’ Jean asked wearily, gulping wine. ‘Haven’t you had enough of this war?’

The Norseman’s eyes gleamed. ‘I have. They don’t pay enough. No, the action I speak of is more personal. You will think so too, when you hear what the Fugger has to say.’

Jean was tired. He hadn’t even noticed the fact that the companion he’d mislaid in the fall of Siena had returned. He looked at him now through drooping eyes. He thought he would fall asleep at the Fugger’s first words, sleep and never wake.
What sort of bliss would that be, an endless, dreamless sleep?

But the Fugger’s speech woke him in an instant.

‘I have seen your son, Jean. More, I have seen the evil he is about. Such evil that it has raised the dead.’

The Fugger told the story swiftly, sparely. Beck, who had only been told that her son was alive, slipped back lower onto the bed as she listened. Anne sat unmoving beside her, rigid, as the vision of Gianni returned, stronger now his purpose was revealed. Jean stared, first at the speaker, then above him, finally across the room at Beck, whose eyes would not meet his.

It was Haakon who spoke next. ‘This is the action I spoke of, Jean. The two actions, though they are linked. Fighting on two fronts is never good strategy but I believe there is no choice. We’ – he gestured to his son and the Fugger – ‘are going to Rome. We will swiftly find a way into the Lateran prison and we will free Maria. Then we’ll come after you, to aid you on your front.’

Jean’s mouth seemed unable to make enough spit to speak. He took a sip of wine, said, ‘And where will I be?’

Haakon laughed, his son echoing him. ‘On the trail of your son, of course. You heard, Anne Boleyn’s hand will be unearthed. Why, man, do you not see?’ The Norseman thumped the table. ‘The quest begins anew.’

In the silence then, Beck finally met his eyes. Held them, while she made one clear motion of her head.
No
.

Haakon didn’t see it, went on with the same enthusiasm in his voice. ‘It should not take us long. With the Fugger’s mind and our strong arms, what chance do these Roman dogs have? But while you wait for us, you won’t be alone.’ His voice deepened, some emotion quivering there. ‘You will have another old friend to look after you. Erik?’

He gestured and, with a shy smile, the young man reached behind him, picked something up, placed it on the table before Jean.

‘I was doing mine anyway,’ he said. It was no trouble.’

Jean’s sword lay on the table before him, the pommel toward him, the bottom third of the blade protruding from a new soft leather sheath, a different weapon than the one Jean had seen, ragged with un-care, as they fled Siena. The grip was once again wrapped tight with green leather straps, as good a binding as Jean had ever done. The guard and apple-sized pommel both gleamed with the lamplight bouncing off their polished surfaces. And he could see, even before he leaned forward and ran his finger over the bright cutting edge, feeling the slightest of cuts there, how keen the blade was.

‘It’s as sharp as my scimitars. Sharper! It’s a fine weapon!’

‘Toledo steel,’ Jean said softly, ‘the finest there is.’

He looked again to Beck. And she spoke. ‘You will not use it. Not in this cause. Not against your own son.’

Haakon blustered, ‘I did not mean that, Beck, of course. It’s for the German, Von Solingen. Gianni will see reason, he’ll …’

She had waited for an answer. Haakon’s words she ignored. When Jean stayed silent, she went on. ‘You fulfilled your vow. I helped you do it, though you and I, the Fugger and Haakon so nearly died in its doing. Januc did die. It’s over. Leave it be.’

Jean still would not speak, just stared back at his wife, so Anne did.

‘Mother, I saw Gianni, here,’ she touched the side of her head, ‘in the courtyard of the Comet. The Fugger is right … he is about evil. I do not know the extent of it. But evil it is and we have to try to stop it.’

Beck laughed, a sound of bitterness. ‘You want to stop evil, daughter? Then do not go to France to seek it out. It begins at our front door and it runs from there through all the world.’

Beck raised herself from the bed, her feet reached the floor and somehow she was standing. Not even Anne moved to help her as she shuffled to the table’s end and looked down at her husband.

‘What do you care about the destiny of queens and countries? They have destroyed your home, broken your body, killed your friends. What do you care which faith rules? You are the most godless man I know.’ He shuddered then, made to look away, but she leaned down, holding him. ‘You drove your son away. Now he is about his own quest, one he believes in as much as you ever did in yours. It is the same story spun in the beginning of the world – fathers age and sons grow bold. Leave. It. Be.’

She sank then, finally, the last of her strength used. Haakon put a stool under her; Anne came to hold her arm. Five heads faced Jean from the end of the table, questions on every face.

His finger had stayed pressed against Toledo steel. Looking down now he noticed that the blade was as true as its promise, for blood flowed there, dripping onto the table. In it he saw his answer.

She was right. He had shed enough in this cause, could shed no more. And in his heart of hearts, he knew this truth – even if he had still been strong, he had no courage left to shed blood with.

‘My wife is right. I have done enough. My duty now is here. To her. And to Anne …’ He faltered on the name. ‘My daughter, Anne.’

No one spoke again, and in the silence his weariness returned five-fold. Rising he shuffled past them to the bed and turned his face to the wall, away from their demands, away from the concern and the disappointment in their eyes.

It was the middle of the afternoon before Haakon returned from organizing his journey and Anne was able to take his arm and lead him outside the door. The Norseman was distracted – he needed horses and horses were at a premium in a town preparing for war. His eyes were focused over her head, musing on theft, so he did not hear her clearly when she whispered her request.

‘Runes?’ She shooshed him and he went on more quietly. ‘Child, I have taught you all I know. You have the meanings as well, probably even better than I, for age is robbing me of memory.’

‘But I do not have the sight. Without that, they are like letters in a language that is dead to me. I cannot read them. You have to teach me.’

Haakon sighed, as the bell of the monastery struck three above them. ‘It cannot be … taught. It is a path that you must walk alone.’

‘And I will. But someone must lead me to where the path begins. My desire is not enough. Someone led you.’