The French Executioner (14 page)

The mirth stopped the instant he heard the groan.

‘Son of a whore!’ Haakon was trying to sit up. ‘Who has broken my head?’

He sank back. Jean could see the lump swelling beneath broken skin on the forehead, an eye already halfway to closing.

‘Your whoreson’s here, Haakon,’ he called.

‘Keep your filthy tongue off my mother,’ the youth spat.

At the third attempt, the big man managed to stagger over. He looked at the young man before him.

‘You tried to kill me,’ he said in a sad voice, rubbing his eye. ‘What did you hit me with?’

‘This.’ The youth held up the slingshot. ‘And if I’d wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.’

‘A David! A David is come among us,’ said the Fugger.

Jean took the weapon, running his fingers down the ropes.

‘I used to hunt birds with one of these when I was a child. Why would you use them on men?’

‘Why don’t you ask your friend here?’ Turning to Haakon, the youth said, ‘I used the large stone on you so it would just stun
you. Him I wanted dead, and he is. Look!’

The youth gestured towards Heinrich and, while they all turned to look at the body in the mud, quietly rose from the ground
and took one step up the hill.

‘No, my David,’ said the Fugger, grabbing an ankle, ‘I’ve had enough of rolling down hillsides, if you please.’

And then the dead man moaned, and each of them turned
again, a sword and an axe poised. And since both men had served with the English on campaign they both understood the youth’s
next words in that language.

‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! How could this happen?’

The moan was all they got from Heinrich. The smaller stone had caught him in the killing zone at the temple, but had caught
the edge of his helmet too, halving its force. He was in more danger from drowning in the muddied rut, so Jean turned Heinrich’s
head towards them while he considered what to do.

‘We may need him later,’ was how he explained this act of seeming kindness.

The laughter had been a release, but now the situation returned to Jean, and with it some of his determination. His comrades
were suffering the various after-effects of battle. All, including himself, were bruised, if not bleeding. Pursuit of Cibo
had to be swiftly undertaken. Yet he had some obstacles to that and he dealt with the one he could speak to first.

‘Are you English then, young man?’

‘I was born there. In York. But I wouldn’t call myself English. My people have a faith not a country.’

‘Ah, a Jew.’ Jean smiled. ‘Now the slingshot makes more sense.’

‘Yes, a Jew.’ The strong jaw was thrust forward. ‘Any problems with that?’

‘No.’ Jean returned the other’s look. ‘My problems are all to do with the man we just let escape. We pursue this man not because
we are “footpads” but because
he
has stolen something from
us.’

‘We are equal in that. Giancarlo Cibo has something of mine as well.’

Jean paused at the naming of his enemy, and at the determination that underlay that naming. It seemed a match for his own,
and it decided what he said next.

‘I am not in the habit of leading, but perhaps this common
cause can bind us. Our quarry will go to ground in Toulon, in the Bishop’s palace or some other place where it will be hard
to flush him out. One with skill such as yours could be useful. And perhaps our skills will prove useful to you.’

There was silence, appraisal in the dark brown eyes. Finally, the youth spoke. ‘I am not in the habit of following. But if
your paths and mine are the same, I will walk with you for a while. And if your orders serve my turn, I will even obey them.
Yet I am on my own quest, and someone’s life depends on me. To that mission my ultimate loyalty is bound.’

‘Good enough. My name is Jean.’ Jean spat on his hand and held it out. ‘To common cause.’

The youth spat and reached up. ‘Beck. Yes, common cause.’

Jean saw the young man before him and felt a young man’s grip, a squeeze of equal measure to his own. But there was another
quality to the touch that made him think instantly of Anne Boleyn, of that moment when she’d laid her hands on either side
of his head. It was strange. Was it the darkness of the eyes, similar to his Queen’s? He tried to look at them more closely,
search them for a reason for this disquiet. But Beck had become suddenly busy, retrieving stones, so Jean set about his own
preparations. Yet he found himself glancing continually at the young man, looking swiftly away if in danger of his glance
being met.

The second obstacle was the unconscious bodyguard. Haakon had been for killing him there and then, but Jean disagreed.

‘We think this Cibo will seek the protection of the local Church. But he is cunning and knows he will be followed. If he goes
to ground, this man’ – Jean raised Heinrich by the hair – ‘will lead us to him.’

The party assembled. Fenrir was in front, sniffing excitedly at the scents wafting from the sea ahead. Daemon rode on the
Fugger, Haakon had the unconscious Heinrich lying on the biggest horse before him. When Jean mounted, he looked again at Beck,
who waved them on.

‘My horse is tethered over the rise. I’ll catch up with you.’

Beck watched the party set off.

Why am I joining them? I always work alone. Was it this Frenchman’s handshake? Was it his laugh? Something as ridiculous as
that?

Climbing the hill to the trees, hidden there from anyone’s sight, the youth began to adjust clothing. Things had come badly
undone in the tumble down the hillside with the Fugger. Removing the baggy shirt, Beck fully unwound the cloth wrapped six
times around the chest. Then, pausing only for a moment to rub her long-constricted breasts, she began to bind them tightly
again into their linen prison.

The Archbishop had not taken refuge with the Bishop of Toulon for two reasons. Firstly, he was known to be religious and it
would mean hours of ceremony and prayer, plain food and watered-down wine. More importantly, this religiousness meant the
fool kept only priests around him, and they would not be enough to stop his pursuers.

Cibo headed straight for the port. It was the first time he lamented the loss of his bodyguard, for Heinrich had arranged
the passage, knew the captain and the boat by sight and was used to harbours such as these. Knowing only the ship’s name,
Cibo had to search among the hundreds of mastheads himself, mixing with sweating humanity, the villainous swill of Europe
and Africa concentrated in a small area with too little to do and too little money to do it with. He’d taken the precaution
of dressing in the cassock lent to him by the Dominicans for the scourging. Their vow of poverty meant they were usually poor
fare for robbers. Had any known that under the simple woollen shift he carried a saddle bag with the Bishop of Angers’ generous
bribe, Cibo would not have survived the walk.

He found the ship after an hour. The Genoese master, a surly dog named Rudolpho reeking of sweet Malaga wine, who knew only
that his nameless passenger wanted swift and secret passage, deposited him in his ‘accommodation’, a hammock stretched out
in a hold that had recently
contained dried fish, a feeble light coming from one open porthole.

Yet, once swinging, with an evening and a night to pass before they could sail with the dawn tide, Cibo was strangely content.
True, he had lost the bodyguard he so loved to torment and, even more sadly, his beautifully trained horse, Mercury – a monk
leading a stallion through the port would not have made his ship – but he had survived an ordeal that would top even the best
story his mad brother, Franchetto, could tell. And it had been a welcome, active change from the labyrinthine politics of
the Papal court, where ploys were more esoteric, betrayals a mental rather than a personally physical exercise. One didn’t
administer poison oneself, or feel the joy of a dagger stealing a life. One had people to do that for one.

Of course, the main thing was that he had won, again! The hand was his, the witch’s hand, that monstrosity taken from a queen
– what, could it be no more than a couple of weeks before? – in that crude island of Britain. That the hand had a great power
over men he already knew – for wasn’t it the executioner, Jean Rombaud, the man he’d left to rot in a gibbet cage, who had
leapt at his horse this afternoon? If the hand could encourage a man thus to cheat his lawful death and seek revenge on Giancarlo
Cibo, what else could it do?

Glancing over at his saddle bag, he noticed something curious. He’d broken off the arrow shaft that had embedded itself in
the bag at the ambush, but had not yet had time to dig out the iron tip. He realised now that there was a dark stain on the
leather where none had been before. It wasn’t sweat but something thicker, and potent enough to penetrate cow hide.

He pulled the bag up onto the hammock and worked the arrow head free. The pocket beyond held the velvet bag which in turn
held Anne Boleyn’s hand. He’d only looked at it briefly once, by moonlight, outside that inn. Now, he needed to see it again,
despite the putrid flesh that would be clinging to it by this time – which smell, oddly, he’d yet to notice.

He sniffed; still no trace.
Must be the fish.

Undoing the strap of the pocket, pulling out the velvet bag, fumbling with the drawstring, his hands shook with excitement.
He reached in and touched the hand cautiously, then quickly withdrew his probing finger.

It was cold, which was understandable, but it was the smoothness that made him gag more than any putrescence would have done.
It seemed to be stuck somehow in the bag, and shaking would not dislodge it.

‘Enough!’ he said, and reached in. After some twisting, he pulled it into the light and saw where the arrow head had pierced
it, saw the trail of fresh blood oozing down to the six fingers, pooling in the nails there.

It was not the blood, where there should have been none, nor the unnatural freshness of the hand that caused him to scream.
It was the way the fingers suddenly bunched into a ball, the way just one slowly uncurled, pointing, in red and bloody accusation,
straight into his eyes.

On deck, the sailors heard the scream and it froze them where they stood. After a moment, as the drawn-out wail died away
to be replaced by a desperate sobbing, even the drunk of a captain began feverishly to cross himself. A mad priest was one
of the most terrible things you could have on a boat. A mad monk was worse. Far worse.

There was next to nothing going on in the festering stew of Toulon harbour that Maltese Gregor did not know about. It was
his business to know which ship was bringing in hashish, and which was bringing in slave girls. The price squid could fetch
that day in the market, and who was trying to undercut that price. Which passengers were leaving, openly or in disguise, and
which were arriving and might need expensive assistance or the thrust of a fee’d assassin’s knife. Knowledge was profit and
power, and if he, the King of Thieves, did not earn the one and control the other, who would?

He knew one of the ships bound for the Indies contained
twenty heretics in its stinking hold. They had paid handsomely for his silence. He knew a quantity of near-perfect fake ducats
had just arrived from the silversmiths of Izmir. He had taken a handsome handling fee. And he knew that a Dominican monk had
paid
in gold
to take ship to Livorno, the free port of Tuscany. Inconsistencies like monks with gold disturbed him and he felt a personal
midnight visit might be required. He liked to handle inconsistencies himself because it was so hard to find people who would
not try to cheat him. He’d personally garrotted a servant that morning for that very offence, and the memory of the incredulity
on the man’s face made him smile.

There were always people looking for signs of weakness in him to exploit, and a good garrotting reminded them that he’d been
in charge for five years and would be for some considerable time to come. He knew it couldn’t last for ever. Just till he’d
amassed enough gold to return to his home and live out the rest of his life in luxury. And when he thought of Bavaria – for
‘Maltese’ was a title only from the days when that tribe ran Toulon – he smiled again. His personal fortune would already
guarantee him the life of a successful burgher. Five more years, three if they were very good, and he could buy himself a
title. Not bad for the bastard son of a butcher.

All it required was knowing everything there was to know, with no surprises. So when Heinrich von Solingen walked through
his door, he was less than pleased for all sorts of reasons.

‘Heinrich!’ he beamed. ‘It’s been a long time.’

Inwardly, he had a vision of another garrotting. Someone would pay for letting this man near him unannounced.

Since the German bodyguard had never seen Beck, Jean had let the youth do the close shadowing, while he and the others followed
from a safer distance. They’d managed to keep Heinrich in sight through the increasing frenzy of the town,
and now met in the lee of a waterseller’s awning opposite the stairway their quarry had just ascended. Unnecessary caution,
perhaps, for Heinrich was still shaking and rubbing his head, and had done from the time they’d dumped him outside the town
walls at the moment when his groans indicated returning consciousness. On his weaving walk in, he’d failed to look back more
than once.

While the Fugger went off to bargain for food and wine, the other three watched the only door of the house. Many came and
left.

‘Judging by the activity,’ said Haakon, ‘I’d say he’s in a brothel.’

‘A pretty low-class one,’ Jean commented, observing the tenth man they’d seen in as many minutes go in. ‘All the scum of the
docks. And they don’t seem to stay very long. Must be Dutch.’

Both men laughed and for some reason, Beck blushed. At that moment the Fugger came back and began to hand out bread, peaches,
wine, pig’s trotters and roast chitterlings. The fruit basket he’d carried it all in, upended, made a table.