Blood Ties (26 page)

Hands wrapped around the arm that clutched fire. Gianni looked into a face that couldn’t be there.

‘Stop this!’ Anne cried, the suddenness of her assault wresting the brand from him. She threw it aside, took his head in both her hands.

‘Gianni, oh child, oh my brother! What sins do you commit here?’

The words, the hands, the black eyes. His whole family in them, everything he had escaped from, all that was wrong with the world. He looked away from her to the backs of soldiers struggling to contain a crowd. To one man standing before them. To his father.

Jean Rombaud was close enough now to hear the words that went with the slap, as Gianni backhanded Anne, crashing her onto smoking wood.

‘I do God’s work here,
sister
. And the only sinner is … him!’

And just as Gianni pointed directly at him, Jean felt fingers dig into his shoulder.

‘Nothing personal, Rombaud,’ came a familiar voice. ‘Just business, you understand.’

He squirmed in Uriah’s grip, but the hand held him firmly, joined by others as Magonnagal arrived.

‘Club the bloody man, shall I?’ the Irishman said.

‘No need.’ Makepeace looked like he was bestowing a great favour. ‘Rombaud’s a man who knows when a game’s up.’

Jean sagged, would have fallen if the press of the crowd and the hands had not held him.

It was at that moment that the first pyre truly caught and the giant heretic left his prayers to scream. All eyes were drawn by the dreadful wail of agony. The man tried to escape the heat, raising his legs from the ground, his body contorting. But the iron girdle around his waist held him and he sank down again, his brown shift catching, encasing him in crimson and yellow, his hair smouldering. Then, just as it seemed as if his agony could go on no longer, as if the martyrdom he’d sought would take him, his huge body bent, dipped into the heart of the fire and, uttering his most terrifying groan, he stood up. The stake that had held him was wrenched from the ground.

The sight took away the crowd’s voice, halted the drum, stopped the bell, suspended the dirge mid-note. The burning figure took one step, another, began to totter forward. Then, with the scattering of the embers at his feet, as flaming logs cascaded off the pyre, the burning man burst from the middle of his own execution, bent and ran straight into the line of soldiers.

The top of the stake drove into a guardsman’s head, snapping the neck, knocking him forward. The blade of his halberd sliced into a man to Jean’s left, one of Uriah’s who held him. The crowd exploded away from the burning man. As the stake went over his head, Jean ducked, was singed as the human torch flared by him, separating him from Uriah, who had no choice but to leave his grip or burn. In the space that had cleared, the martyr now began whirling, as if in movement there would be relief, instead of the increase in flame, in agony. The people scattered, trying to avoid the sparks that showered off him, several caught by the ends of the stake as it swept by. Free, Jean saw a gap, and dived into the crowd. He didn’t look back until he had reached its extremity, until he could raise himself onto the lowest step of the Beauchamp Tower.

The whirling figure finally stopped, staggered, fell in a flash of flames. Lit by them, Uriah was casting about, shouting, seeking. Jean ducked, but not so low that he could not see to the centre of the Green. See his daughter, lying at his son’s feet where his son’s blow had thrown her.

Anne!
He took a step, just the one, back toward her, his hand clutching the emptiness at his side. Once there would have been a sword there. Once he wouldn’t have thought, just drawn Toledo steel, thrust its square tip ahead of him, used it and the chaos around him to get in, seize his child, get out.
Once
.

Turning his back, Jean Rombaud crouched low and ran.

‘Something’s happening!’

‘Oh yes?’

‘The gate.’

‘Ah, the gate.’ There was a yawn. ‘Anyone come out?’

‘Not yet. Wait, there’s someone, it’s …’

‘Another guard?’

‘Two. And the gates haven’t closed behind them.’

‘Really.’ Haakon yawned again. He hadn’t even opened his eyes so he didn’t need to reclose them. When they’d first found this perch opposite the prison, in the barn beside the tavern, he’d reacted almost as swiftly as Erik to every action at the gate opposite, hoping for a pattern to emerge there or some moment of carelessness, anything that might give them their chance. Three weeks of such reacting had worn away his edge. Three weeks of plans, from the abduction of guards to tunnelling from where they watched, each one feverishly thought through, then painfully abandoned. It drained him; so, latterly, he had limited his efforts to restraining Erik from charging the gates.

‘They look different, Father, these two. And they’re pacing as if they’re expecting someone.’

‘It’s a prison, boy. People come and go every day.’

‘Look! Two more have joined them. They’re pointing back into the yard. Look!’

With a groan, Haakon rolled over and put his eye to a gap in the rough loam wall. Four guards were indeed standing there.

‘So? Waiting for the rest of their shift so they can go and get drunk next door. I wish I could join them.’ Haakon dropped back, closed his eyes again, ran his tongue around the dryness of his mouth. Their remaining coin bought them the right to sleep in the stable and just enough food for each day. He hadn’t tasted wine in a week.

The door creaked, and the third of their number appeared. ‘Something’s happening,’ the Fugger said.

‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him!’ Erik was already reaching for his weapons, as he had one hundred times since their arrival. ‘It’s those guards, isn’t it?’

‘Guards?’ The Fugger looked out, then back. ‘I don’t know about them. But something is happening in Rome.’ He squatted down beside Haakon. ‘The Pope is dead.’

Again, Haakon didn’t bother to open his eyes, just sighed. Between his lovelorn son and the anxious father he seemed to be the only one whose brains were not addled.

‘Fugger, the Pope died three weeks ago, the day after we arrived. Why are you excited by such old news?’

‘Because I’m not talking about Paul the Third. I’m talking about Marcellus the Second.’

Haakon finally opened one eye. ‘But wasn’t he just elected?’

‘Yes. And now he’s just dead. But there’s much more than that. The man who succeeds him? Who is already issuing his orders from the Vatican? It’s Carafa.’

This brought the other eye wide open as Haakon leaned forward. ‘That Neapolitan bastard? The Head of the Inquisition? But he’s mad!’

‘That never disqualified anyone from being Pope, Haakon.’ The Fugger spoke with a contempt born in his Protestant youth. ‘No one cares, because his madness is directed against the Church’s enemies – and Carafa has a long list. Anyone who strays one fingernail from the Orthodox is in grave danger. The rumours I have heard say that squads of soldiers are already spreading out through the city, arresting heretics, witches, Jews, anyone who carries the Lutheran taint. You know what that will mean?’

‘What?’ Erik said, when his father merely nodded.

‘The prisons will be crammed full, boy. Lots of to-ings and fro-ings, lots of activity, which is good for us. In fact …’ Haakon put his eye again to the gap. ‘By a whore’s weary back, you were both right. Something is indeed happening.’

They all went to the entrance of the stable. Across from it, the prison gates still stood open, but there were twenty guards now, soldiers in helm and breastplate, pikes at port, forming a corridor out into the street. As they watched, there was a stirring within the yard and a man put his head out, blinking into the sunlight. He looked around in panic, tried to withdraw but was shoved forward by someone behind him. A soldier raised his pike, struck him with the butt end in his side. The man ran forward, receiving blows left and right, falling once. He reached the end of the line and ran, down the street, round the corner. He’d just cleared it and disappeared when a group of five ran from the gates, followed by ten more, some clutching little sacks, most empty handed, raising them to ward off such blows as they could.

‘What is this?’ Erik winced as he saw kicks connect.

‘A little last punishment, a warning.’ The Fugger’s voice was grim. ‘They’re clearing the cells to make room for the new Pope’s enemies. These are the unimportant prisoners – thieves, murderers, rapists. Far better they are free so a woman who wants to read the Bible in her own tongue can be locked away.’

‘Maybe they’ll free Maria!’ Erik was studying the crowd outside closely.

‘Alas! Since Gianni works for him now, I think Maria’s name will be on Carafa’s list.’

As they watched, the guards suddenly seemed to lose interest in their exertions. A last, large group of men, a few women, fled with little more than a boot aimed at their backsides. Most of these headed straight for the tavern beside the stable.

‘Come on,’ said the Fugger, ‘we haven’t had a chance to speak to a woman inmate yet. Maybe they’ll have news of my child.’

It was an ugly crew that filled the tavern, large men with brandings and tattoos, reed-thin women with sallow skin and steel-hard eyes. The innkeeper seemed to know a few and was advancing cheap wine on credit. There seemed little doubt as to the type of profession most of them followed; little doubt too that the landlord saw future profit in his generosity.

They split up, listened to conversations, spent some of their precious coin on loosening tongues. Erik found favour with one woman. Though three times as old as he, she was nearly as tall, and her prison-shrunken frame must once have been as wide, for her skirt, shift and cloak swamped her in excess cloth.

‘Want to get into the women’s cells, do you, sweet boy? A lusty lad like you needn’t go so far to find his pleasure. Why not just give yourself to Long Margaretha, eh? Come! Come outside now.’

A gnarled hand reached out from within the tattered garments, running swiftly down below his belt. He intercepted it, placed a cup, poured some wine. She drank deep, sought a refill, drank again, smiled. ‘No? You’re one of them, eh? Only like them if they’re captive?’ She let out a loud cackle. ‘Well, some advice then, young pretty. If you do get in, stay on the main floor for your jigging. Nice girls like me up there, good daughters of the Church, all. Slip the guard a florin and he’ll leave you alone with us. Slip us another and you can slip us what you want – we’ll bless you as we take you in!’

She drank hard again, then leaned into him. He forced himself not to withdraw from the foul scent of the cell that clung to her.

‘But here’s some other advice – don’t descend the stairs, for they lead straight to hell. No, they pass by hell. They finish … in Tartarus.’

She shuddered, some memory suddenly sobering her, her voice dropping. ‘You can hear them wail down there, just sometimes, if the night is very still,’ she continued in a whisper. ‘Once I heard them singing, a hymn it was, but in Italian, not Latin! Protestants, you see! No wonder they are condemned to the foulest vault!’ The eyes, that had cleared in the recollection, glazed again and she belched extravagantly. ‘So don’t go there, my lover. Not unless you likes to stick it into skeletons! And I’ve met some who do!’ Her laughter rolled over him. ‘Heretic skeletons at that!’

Erik felt a chill. He was suddenly certain where his Maria was held. He swiftly rejoined the others.

‘New sweetheart, boy? Little big for you, wasn’t she?’

His father could find humour in situations where there was none. ‘A woman from the prison. She told me they put the heretics in some sort of vault on the lower floor. She called it Tartarus!’ He burst out, ‘I fear my Maria is there.’

‘Tartarus?’

‘You know it, Fugger?’ said Haakon.

The question was unnecessary, for the man’s face had turned white. ‘I know it. Sometimes, in my despair, I called my midden chamber by that accursed name. I sought to glorify my paltry suffering but I was barely in hell, while Tartarus is seven leagues below the deepest level of Hades.’ He let out a cry. ‘And they keep my daughter there? Oh Merciful Christ!’

‘Then why do you stay?’ Erik was more terrified by the shadows in the Fugger’s eyes than anything he had heard so far. He was on his feet, his hands reaching below his cloak to his weapons. ‘I will try my scimitars against those Roman dogs at the gate right now.’ He stepped toward the door.

‘And you will die for nothing.’ Haakon grabbed his son by the shoulder, pulled him close. ‘We know now that more prisoners will be going in than have been released. The gates will open and close often, day and night. There’s our chance, perhaps. Fugger, tell the boy!’

But the German’s eyes were still focused inward, gazing on horrors.

As Erik began to argue, the main door of the tavern swung open. In the entrance stood a tall officer, dressed in the uniform of the Vatican guards. This Pope’s policeman brought instant silence to a room filled with some of the Pontiff’s recent, reluctant guests.

‘Scum of the earth!’ the man boomed. ‘Just who I’m looking for.’

He mounted a chair in the centre of the room, swept a plumed hat from long, beautifully coifed red hair and shouted, ‘So, you dogs, I’m recruiting. We have a lot of work to do tonight and not enough men to do it. This gives you a chance to redeem yourselves for your miserable sins … and to earn good coin into the bargain! Buy yourselves a few more nights of drinking and whoring before you sin again and we throw you back inside those walls.’

Some of his audience, wine bold, jeered, some slunk away, most stayed silent and stared.

‘It’s very simple, even to donkeys like yourselves.’ He reached into his cloak, pulled out sheaves of parchment. ‘These are lists of people we want. One list, one officer. Three of you go with each of my men and bring these villains back to the prison. For each one brought back, there’s a ducat. For a family, you’ll get a piece of gold.’

There were cheers at this. He continued, ‘And what’s more, there’s no danger. Those we want you to arrest are not scum like you …’ More cheers. ‘They’re scum like Luther, Calvin and such folk. Religious scum. Jewish scum. And witches, too. So you’ll make gold on earth while you store up treasure in heaven.’