Blood Ties (29 page)

‘Yes! Drive them back to hell!’ shouted Lucius Heltzinger, looking to thrust his pike point over the head of his men. Then he changed his grip, placed the length of the shaft against the back of those nearest him, shoved hard. The extra weight caused a bowing and first Haakon, then Erik tumbled back.

The ground they had gained was lost. Pikes drove at them and they reeled back, parrying desperately. Maria screamed and pulled Erik away from a sword aimed at his face, into the alcove where she had remained. Haakon collapsed into the other one, his axe cutting down on the pike pole, snapping it.

They were trapped. There was a moment of silence. The men above had halted, a hedge of sharp points now pointing into the alcoves.

‘Keep herding them back!’ cried Lucius Heltzinger. ‘We’ll pen these sheep into the foulest region of hell.’

Haakon looked across, found his son’s eyes. In them he saw what must be within his own. An acknowledgement that this was the end.

He was about to say it, to yell ‘Farewell’ and throw himself onto the pikes, when a sound came from behind them, from down the stairs. It started low, one word on a single whisper, taken up by a voice, then another, another, building, till a score of voices spoke, more, and it was no longer a whisper but a roar. Bodies in rags, straw-strewn and filth-encrusted, swept up the stairs, screaming out that word now, transformed from the label of their degradation to the banner of their hope.

‘Tartarus!’

Its legions poured from their prison. Bone knives thrust before them, they ducked under the pike blades, stabbed upwards. The soldiers on the stair stumbled, fell, cursed, tried to avoid the shards of bone jabbed at their faces. Those that had not fallen broke and ran, wraiths a step behind.

Those within the alcoves needed no second bidding. ‘Come!’ shouted Haakon, and they trailed the last moving pile of rags up toward the light.

The Fugger knew he was looking at a powderkeg. The heretics, the Jews, all the fearful prisoners of the new Pope, they had all but given up in their despair. But the brutality of their treatment, and the diminishing number of the guards, was instilling some courage. They would follow someone who took a lead, he felt sure. They would heed a sign.

As he drew close to the officer in charge, he drew the pistol from within the folds of his cloak. Then, as he stepped forward, screams erupted from the gateway to Tartarus.

Lucius emerged first, his cloak abandoned, once more clad only in his undershirt.

‘Guns, here!’ he screamed, and four guards with muskets moved to obey him, to encircle the tiny entrance.

This was the moment and the Fugger recognized it. As he pulled the trigger, saw the wheel strike the flint and drop sparks into the pan, he cried, ‘Death to tyranny!’

The gun exploded and a guard died. Beaten prisoners saw their chance of vengeance, turning on the thugs that had molested them. The yard convulsed in a frenzy of separate battles. Only before the women’s prison did the Fugger see any ordered resistance, where Heltzinger stood with his men and their half dozen muskets. Then, just as these were primed and lowered to fire into the mêlée, grey bodies burst from the building, bone knives in their hands. The last semblance of order dissolved.

Behind him someone had opened the gates of the men’s prison and the Fugger was nearly swept away, buffeted about by the surging, screaming mob, the pistol ripped from his half-hand. Over the heads he saw a familiar figure in the doorway.

‘Haakon! Over here!’ he yelled, to no avail. He saw the Norseman scan the crowd, then gesture behind him. Erik stepped out, a bundle of rags held in his arms. It took the Fugger more than a moment to realize what he held there, tears arriving with the realization.

‘My daughter! Oh, my child!’

Haakon began to push through toward the gate. The fight was over, revenge just begun. Passages opened within the surging crowd, and the Fugger struggled to the gate. He arrived at the same time as the others.

Barely able to form the words, he asked, ‘Is she alive?’

A hand came out from the rags, bloodied and begrimed, gripping his arm. ‘Don’t go, Father!’ Maria said softly. ‘Tell me another story.’

The gates had already been breached; two dead guards lay in the mud. The Fugger led them swiftly to their horses. They mounted and spurred into the crowd that ran from the broken gates. Through them Haakon glimpsed a writhing, half-naked body hoisted on pike points, red-gold hair waving, an undershirt staining in blood. Flames had sprung up in one of the buildings there, and above their crackling could be heard the ugly chanting of a mob united in vengeance.

Haakon shook his head. ‘Is this what you had in mind, Fugger, when you said we should hide in plain sight.’

The Fugger returned his grin. ‘Not exactly. Montalcino?’

‘Aye, Montalcino. As swift as these nags can carry us. Right, boy?’

But Erik had no ear for his father’s words. He was too occupied hearing everything that issued from his love’s ragged, beautiful lips.

‘“They make haste to shed innocent blood.” Isaiah, I think.’

‘Isaiah? What the hell has Isaiah got to do with the price of pork, Fugger? Anyway, it’s not innocent blood I desire to shed, but the guilty.’

‘But you’ll drag my Maria with you, risk her blood.’

‘Hell’s teeth! She can stay here! I’ve said!’

‘I will not be separated from my Erik again!’

‘It will only be for a little while, love.’

‘No! Besides, it was Gianni Rombaud who condemned me to that hell. I look forward to meeting him again. I’ll have his eyes on my fingernails!’

A huge fist thumped a table. ‘Then, by the wounds of Christ, let’s all go!’

‘But where, Norseman?’

‘To France. We agreed with Jean and Anne that we would rendezvous in Paris—’

‘From the third day after St Aloyisius and on, outside Notre Dame between noon and three bells.’ The Fugger huffed. ‘I always thought it was a crazed plan. If Gianni beat them to the crossroads, as seems probable, he could be on the way back to Rome with his prize. Or returning it to London. Jean and Anne could be anywhere in pursuit.’

Haakon smiled grimly. ‘Rendezvous, however crazed, must be kept. France is the last place we know they were, for Jean will have followed Gianni to the crossroads for the hand. And Paris is as good a place as any to gather information as well as being three days’ ride from the Loire. Or from London. So unless anyone has a better plan …’

One by one each shook their heads, even, finally, the Fugger. At his sigh, Haakon rose, held out a hand. Each there laid a hand on top. ‘Then the quest is reformed. Most of it, anyway. Through the ogres of hell, or a thousand French swords, we will find Jean and Anne again. Four against the world, if need be.’

‘Five.’

They had not heard her come, for she had not wanted to be heard. She had stood in the shadows near the door and listened, tears in her eyes, her face red with the struggle between heart and mind.

‘Five,’ she said again, coming forward to where they had frozen at the sound of her voice. She laid her hand on top of those already there.

‘Beck.’ Haakon’s voice was troubled. ‘Are you well enough to travel?’

‘I am. My daughter healed me well. I will not hold you up, Norseman, and I am still better with a musket than any of you. Besides, I need to be there to stop this one ripping my son’s eyes out.’ She laid her other hand on Maria’s shoulder, stopping the girl’s protest with a squeeze.

The feel of their hands under hers. The power of their friendship in the circle. She had missed that in the weeks of rejection while she had tried to return to her Jewish faith, to the tribe she had rejected so long ago when she took Jean Rombaud as her man. Now, hearing them, feeling that power, she knew where she had to be.

‘So I will come with you to Paris, to London. To the end of the world. I will try to stop my men killing each other, my strong, proud men. I will try to do what is right.’

Now it was Haakon’s eyes that filled with tears, but his voice was strong. ‘Truly, the quest
is
reformed. Let them feel, wherever they are now, whatever peril they are facing, that we are coming to their aid.’

As one voice they said it.

‘Amen.’

‘
Benedic me, Domine, quia peccavi in cogitatione, verbo et opere. Mea
…’

‘Forgive me, my son, for I speak only the language of this land. I am a poor priest of this parish and have little Latin.’

Gianni glanced at the grille that separated the cubicles. Behind it, a darker shadow showed where the priest leaned in to listen. Sighing, Gianni thought of the walk here from the Tower, bypassing church after church in order to reach this cathedral of St Paul’s. He’d reasoned that at the centre of worship in this realm, surely there would be someone of both intelligence and rigour to hear his confession, then apply a suitably harsh penance for his sins? Yet even here, all he encountered was ignorance. No wonder this kingdom had strayed so far from the light when even its priests could not speak the holy tongue.

Of the four languages he spoke, English was his least favourite; and this priest, by the roughness of his voice, spoke one of the strange, guttural dialects that seemed to change every second street! He was tempted to leave, but it had been some time since his last confession in Rome, when he had been absolved for the murder of the old Jew. There was fresh blood on his hands – enemy blood, heretic blood it was true, but blood nonetheless. Yet to speak of all that to someone who had probably never left the cloisters of St Paul’s?

Still, perhaps this was all part of the penance. Leaning closer to the wooden slats, Gianni said the same words again, in English. ‘Then, forgive me, Father, who have sinned in thought, word and deed. It is four weeks since my last confession.’

‘What sins have you committed since then, my son?’

This lack of subtlety. This directness. So very English.

‘The first is pride. I have achieved much for the Holy Cause and I glory in it.’

‘So you regret what you have done?’

‘Of course not. I have shed the blood of Christ’s Enemies alone. But I should not take pride in their deaths, I should be merely the Lord’s humble vessel.’

‘I see. Is pride your only sin?’

‘It is the greatest.’

There was a pause, then that strange voice rasped again. ‘And what of wrath?’

‘Wrath?’

‘You say you have shed the blood of Christ’s enemies. Do they stir you to anger?’

‘Of course. I could not kill them otherwise.’ What was this ignorant man talking about?

‘Would you like to punish all the sinners of the world? Here, in London? Perhaps your family?’

‘My family?’ The conversation had taken an odd turn. ‘These are my sins we are discussing, Father, not theirs.’

‘And have theirs not come down to you?’

Gianni withheld a gasp. This English directness again! He avoided talking of his family, especially in confession. He couldn’t frame the words, even his confessors in Rome had never been able to understand the depth of those sins. Yet this ignorant Englishman, who spoke no Latin, who barely seemed to speak his own language, spoke of his familial guilt?

The priest’s voice had lowered, forcing Gianni to lean in closer to the grille.

‘Come! You know about the sins of the father. Have they not been visited upon you?’

Gianni shook his head, sat back, anger flooding him. This was not what he wanted to talk about. ‘Perhaps. But you cannot grant me absolution for them. Only God can.’

‘Maybe if I understood what they were …’

‘That’s simple. My father serves Satan.’

A longer silence. Then. ‘How?’

‘Why must we talk about him, Priest?’

‘How?’

Gianni’s jaw clenched. Words came through his teeth. ‘He raised me in ignorance of Christ’s glory.’

‘Many men are ignorant of it. Is ignorance a sin?’

‘Yes! It is sinful to be ignorant of God’s commandments. And by that ignorance to seek to harm the Church. He sinned with one of Satan’s strumpets!’ Gianni’s voice burst through the grille as if he would shatter it. ‘He was her champion, this whore, this heretic, this witch who led your land away from the light of Rome.’

‘Calmly, my son, calmly.’

There was silence again, while each man listened to the other’s breaths. In the end, it was Gianni who broke it.

‘But I have atoned for my father’s sin. I have brought back what was stolen. I have undone all his works and I rejoice in that.’

The voice came back in a whisper. ‘Pride again?’

‘Yes!’ Gianni said savagely. ‘In undoing his evil I take great pride!’

He had grown tired of all this. This stupid priest had wearied him. He made ready to leave without absolution.

Then the voice came again. ‘And have you also atoned for others in your family?’

Gianni peered through the wooden web that separated the two cubicles. ‘I would atone for them. But my mother was born of sin, being of the tribe of Christ’s murderers. And my sister …’

A vision of Anne came to him, of the last time he’d seen her. Renard before them both, raging that he had been cheated of the prize of the executioner, their father. When she wouldn’t speak, he had vowed to obtain the Council’s order for her torture. The thought made Gianni go weak in the stomach, so he forced himself back to harshness.

‘My sister must atone. And she will, soon.’

‘How?’

He didn’t know why he told this priest. Perhaps he wanted just to be gone. Perhaps he only wanted to get the visions that had been haunting him out into the air.

‘A Jesuit examines her first. Jesuit techniques of gentleness to persuade her of her errors. They will never work with her.’

‘And when this Jesuit fails?’

It was then Gianni felt the strange sensation on his cheek. He reached up and touched the tears, wondering. The weakness caused him to sin again, as fury overtook him.

‘Then, the day after tomorrow, another man will come and wed her to the rack.’ His lips were at the grille. ‘He will stretch and break her body. And he will fail too, for Anne will betray nothing. Nothing! Nothing!’ His voice cracked. ‘By Christ’s wounds, Father, give me absolution for myself and let my family be!’