The French Executioner (58 page)

Jean ran his fingers lightly over it. ‘It is beautiful, my friend. Erik will love it. And Januc would have loved it as well.’

‘Aye. Tonight, of all nights, I wanted to remember him with something.’

They gathered in the courtyard and, with Mathias’s table groaning under the weight of gifts from all their friends, the memorial
feast was greater than any of them could remember.

Lying back later, the fire consuming Erik’s carefully chopped wood, the umber stones reflecting back its glow, the young wine
from Jean’s vineyards as refreshing and uplifting as the best of any year past, it was time again for the tales. Some of the
details were left out, because of the young age of the audience and the tendency of children to take their fears to bed with
them. But most of the story was there, and its accounts of beautiful queens, devilish enemies, impossible odds, improbable
rescues and battles by sea and land beguiled the evening away.

Each child had his or her favourite section of the story, and each knew that part of it by heart and was annoyed when there
was any deviation from their version. Erik sat with the wooden scimitar on his knees, straining forward whenever his hero
Januc was mentioned. He especially loved the tale of the fight at the bridge, how the janissary had pulled Haakon from the
flood and left him with a farmer’s family before riding to his glorious end in the village. Maria-Carmine sat on her father’s
lap, clutching at his one hand as her mother had once clutched at it, tears flowing as she heard of his sorrows, replaced
by tears of joy at his redemption. Gianni simply wanted more blood in all the stories.

And Anne? She was fascinated most by the beauty of her namesake, the tragedy and triumph of her life. Jean had
discovered a way with words to describe Anne Boleyn that seemed to please the child. For he remembered how once he had lulled
his other child to sleep, in the only other time in his life when he had been happy, and how she had always liked it when
he was simple and true in the telling.

AN ORION EBOOK

First published in Great Britain in 2005 by Orion Books.

First published in ebook in 2011 by Orion Books.

Copyright © 2002 C. C. Humphreys

The moral right of C. C. Humphreys to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN: 978 1 4091 3854 9

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