Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris (78 page)

When the second eye was gone, they left him, bound, on his knees, and Petit Christian explained to Dominic why – for such as Grymonde – it was a punishment worse than death. The red-haired woman provoked a furious dispute over money, and Dominic slaked his bloodlust by stabbing her and dumping her body in the fire pit. As Carla was driven away from Cockaigne, in the same cart she had arrived in, she looked at Petit Christian; just once. Her mind seemed empty of all thought or feeling, yet whatever was writ on her face, it wiped out his smirk, and filled him with dread.

Carla glanced from one bridge to the other. They couldn’t get back to Cockaigne, though like Antoinette, she could think of no place in Paris she would rather be. She could not get to the convent of the Filles-Dieu and claim Amparo. The streets crawled not only with killers, but with those bent on indulging their vilest appetites.

She turned from the window. She took the two cards from her pocket. The Devil was indistinct in the candlelight. A winged beast who stuffed bodies into his mouth. She slipped it behind Death. The sight of the reaper and his horse trampling the mighty gave her comfort. Alice had chosen the card as her quester, and now Carla knew why. Alice had known it was her time to meet the pale horseman, and had embraced him and sought his counsel. In Carla’s draw, Death, in an alternate incarnation, had charged towards the Fire. But how could Mattias find her here? Garnier’s house was imposing but it was no tower.

Carla collected the rest of the deck from the table. She sorted through them until she found the Judgement. The first card she had drawn.
Weighed in the balance and found wanting
. Daniel in the lion’s den. The lions did not eat him because they saw the strength of his spirit. And Death had charged not only towards the Fire, but towards the Judgement. She looked at the card more closely. She studied the image without thinking, without trying to understand what it might mean.

Angels with silver trumpets summoned the dead from crimson tombs.

The Last Judgement.

She recalled a carving in stone of the same scene.

Above the central portal of Notre-Dame de Paris.

The cathedral was but a few hundred paces from here. The degenerates crawling the street would never dare breach that sanctuary. If piety didn’t stop them, fear of the gallows would. Even Marcel Le Tellier would need time, and all the influence he could muster, to evade the law of sanctuary. By then, she could prove herself – to every priest in the building – as devout a daughter of the Church as ever they’d met. A daughter such as she had been, until she’d met Alice. And for all that she had absorbed Alice’s philosophy, she believed that Mother Nature could embrace a child who yet found in the Church’s corrupted corpus a heart made of love, and in Christ a philosopher with whom she would not much disagree.

Most importantly, the nuns at the Filles-Dieu would be subordinate to the eminences of Notre-Dame. She was sure she could win over those eminences, their sympathy and support; and they had the power to reunite her with Amparo.

Carla put the cards back in her pocket. She didn’t feel weak any more. Her body was drained but it would serve her. Her strength begged a question. Was she mad to act on the inspiration of pictures painted on cards? Women could go mad after childbirth. Yet if so – if she were mad – she found herself in a world of madness. She reviewed her design, and it made perfect sense.

She woke Antoinette.

There was a pitcher of water and a bowl on the dresser. Carla wetted a cloth and washed Antoinette’s face. The girl submitted; and revived. She looked at the pillow.

‘Where’s my lion?’

‘Safe in my pocket. You were right. This isn’t a good place. We’re leaving.’

‘Are we going back to the Yards?’

‘Tonight we can’t get across the river. Will you do something brave for me?’

‘What?’

‘Creep to the stairs, very softly. See if there is anyone below, by the front door.’

Antoinette shrugged and nodded, as if such a task was nothing to a girl who had conquered Cockaigne. Carla hugged her. She opened the door. Antoinette left.

Carla washed her own face. Her hair was still in a braid and she smoothed down the loose strands. Her frock bore numerous stains, but few men noted such things.

‘There’s no one there,’ said Antoinette.

In the hallway stood her gambo violl. Carla picked up the case. Its weight made her feel stronger. Had she been required to push it inch by inch up the street on her knees, she would have done so. She opened the front door.

Both guards sat dozing on the steps, their lanterns and weapons at their feet. They did not wake. Carla prodded Bonnett with the case. He scrambled up, as did his fellow.

‘Ensign Bonnett, Captain Garnier will be happy to hear that his wife and his guests enjoy such vigilant protection.’

‘I humbly beg your pardon, my lady. The day has been long, I was up in the dark –’

‘So was I. We are going to Notre-Dame for matins.’

‘Matins?’

‘The midnight office. Psalms, readings from Scripture and the lives of the Saints.’

‘Yes, my lady. Matins. But, it can’t be much past eleven o’clock.’

‘You keep good time for one who sleeps on duty. I am entitled to pray. Must the captain also know that you refused to accompany his ward to church? Or do you fear to walk in the dark? If so, we will walk alone, for we do not.’

Bonnett saw the violl case. He looked up at Carla.

She looked back down at him.

‘Do they play music at matins, my lady?’

She stared at him without speaking. Bonnett bowed.

‘My lady, please let me carry your baggage.’

Carla was glad to get outside. Though she took short steps and her pelvis was a bruised mass, she was glad, too, to be walking. Antoinette held her hand as they headed east towards the Pont Notre-Dame and its chain and its contingent of militiamen, who toasted chestnuts on a brazier. They headed south past Saint-Christopher’s and then east again towards the towers of the cathedral.

Some of the houses and businesses had hired watchmen to stand outside. They nodded to Bonnett and, though she despised him, she was glad to have an escort so well known. They passed the Hôtel-Dieu. Unlike the streets of the Ville, these were free of corpses but she didn’t doubt they had been here. The groundwater left by the shower that afternoon had dried out, apart from that collected in the deeper potholes, but the rain hadn’t washed away the black stains that clung to a wall here and a door there. The island was a death trap. The hush she had felt that morning was intensified by night. It lay everywhere like an invisible fog, thickened, now, with horror, and even shame, though she saw little of either in the faces of the soldiery.

They reached the Parvis and she recognised the clutch and slither of congealed blood beneath her feet. She had trodden in such before. They had desecrated even the Parvis. The moon was behind them and nearing its height and the cathedral’s intricate façade formed a vast mosaic of silver and absolute black. The Last Judgement was hidden in shadow but it was there, and so was she. The great doors beneath the frieze stood open. A dim glow shimmered within, thrown by scores of candles yet unseen. Three militiamen loitered around the entrance, she presumed to weed out Huguenots seeking shelter, and again she was glad of Bonnett’s presence. She bent down to the girl.

‘Antoinette? We’ll be safe here until we’re sure we will be safe somewhere else. It was your story that brought us here, so I thank you.’

‘My story?’

‘The story you made with the cards, the lady with the lion.’

Bonnett stepped back suddenly – leaving Carla, she could not help but notice, in the path of whatever danger threatened – and drew his sword.

A slender figure dashed towards them from the north side of the square. With one hand she held her frock up around her thighs; in the other she held a sack. She stopped a few steps short of Carla, and dropped her skirts and held the sack in both hands, or, rather, with the fingers of one hand slipped inside the sack’s mouth. She stood tensed for quick movement. She glanced at Bonnett, and Carla had the curious sense that he was in more danger than the girl.

Bonnett snarled to cover his embarrassment.

‘Who’re you, slut?’

The girl ignored him. She looked at Carla. She was perhaps fourteen. Her hair was cut short without much regard for style and shone as blue as Turkish indigo under the moon. Her face was smudged with what looked like, but could not have been, powder black. Her eyes were grim but determined. Carla sensed she had seen worse things that day than even she had witnessed.

‘Can you take us inside, madame?’

‘Heretics, is it?’ said Bonnett.

‘Be quiet, Bonnett.’

‘If you don’t,’ said the girl, ‘they will try to kill us.’

‘Try?’ said Bonnett.

‘Ensign Bonnett, I said be quiet.’

Carla nodded to the girl.

‘Of course I’ll take you inside. How many are you?’

‘Four. Can you trust him?’

‘I trust his fear of his captain, whose favour I enjoy.’

The girl turned and beckoned. Three more figures emerged from nowhere and ran towards them. In the middle was a boy, around the same age as the girl. A pair of bulging saddle wallets were slung over his shoulder. They flapped as if heavily loaded. Two small girls, identical in feature, clung onto his hands.

‘I don’t know about this, my lady,’ said Bonnett.

‘Ensign Bonnett, I had hoped to spare Captain Garnier the humiliation of hearing that his wife’s defenders fell asleep on her doorstep. Accompany these children through the doors with me, and I will.’

‘Are you looking to be baptised into the One True Church?’ Bonnett asked the girl.

The girl shifted her weight and eyed him up and down. Carla was sure, though Bonnett, his sword lowered, was oblivious, that the girl was ready to pounce on him.

The girl said: ‘No.’

‘Enough,’ said Carla. ‘Take us inside. You go first. And put that sword away.’

Bonnett sheathed his sword and drew himself up to his full height, which was some inches less than either Carla’s or the girl’s. He puffed his chest and led the way, accepting slovenly salutes from the men on the door. Carla gestured for the children to go ahead of her and all but the girl did. The girl walked beside her, lithe as a tomcat.

They passed beneath the Last Judgement.

The cathedral, which she had expected to be empty, was half-f of refugees, all of them women and children as far as she could see. Their misery filled the immense space like incense. Carla turned to Bonnett and retrieved her violl.

‘If you wish to stay and pray for forgiveness, you are welcome. If not, I free you from your charge. You may tell your captain I am safe and well.’

Carla was indifferent to his decision and left him to it. When she turned back to ask the girl her name, she found that the four fugitive children had disappeared.

Carla didn’t dwell on them. The service she had done them was small; they had a lot of company. She took Antoinette’s hand and walked up the nave. She had to find a priest, explain who she was. She would speak Italian. Most priests here would have at least a smattering. It would mark her out at once from the Huguenots.

She felt faint. A cramp. Her legs threatened to give way. She was some way down the nave. If she passed out she might well be ignored, as many lay prostrate on the tiles. She set down her violl and slid into the nearest bench and pulled Antoinette beside her. Her head swam. She lowered it to her knees. It was the emptiness inside her. It was consuming her. She had to have her baby back. She saw Amparo’s face. What if she never saw Amparo again? The nuns would rename her. Someone would claim her, adopt her. How soon? A wet nurse would feed her. Tonight? She’d be hungry. She’d be alone. The memory of the warmth and love into which Amparo had been born brought a great sob from Carla’s heart. Estelle. Alice. Her mother.

How could the babe not know all that was gone?

What had she done?

The priest. She had to find a priest.

She tried to stand but couldn’t. She felt something slide out of her.

This was sanctuary.

She covered her face with her skirts and cried, too empty to call upon God.

TANNHAUSER THREADED HIS
way across the market by the Port Saint-Landry. He saw no one. He set the lamp by the stable gate and lifted Estelle from his shoulders. Amparo was asleep. She was a little miracle. He took Estelle’s hand. They skirted a body dumped by a midden with its neck cut nigh to the spine below the ear. They slipped through the dark towards Irène’s.

He stopped at an alley several houses short.

He saw no sign of a lookout. Le Tellier would have sent at least one killer stony enough to murder three children, a Baro not a Frogier, and two degenerate enough to hold them and watch. They were expecting him. They’d been sent to capture him alive. They had made thousands of arrests and would expect this to be just another. Irène would answer the door. She probably lied well. One man in hiding, below, or two? At least one would remain upstairs to threaten Pascale. He armed the pistol and the crossbow.

‘Estelle, will you wait here and look after my bow?’

She nodded.

‘What will you do if I don’t come out again?’

‘Run with Amparo and make of our life.’

‘You’re a clever girl.’

‘But you will come out again.’

‘Of course I will.’

He stepped out from the wall. He could see no lights in Irène’s house. He went to the window and pressed his nose to the glass. A dim glow came from the kitchen. He hammered on the door three times, returned to the window and watched the candle approach through the blur. A woman’s shape. He shouted through the door.

‘Madame Irène? Sergent Baro here.’

The door moved and he shoved it open and barged past Irène, lowering the crossbow. The smell of powder. A dead man lay on his belly at the foot of the stairs.