The French Executioner (38 page)

‘Blasphemy upon blasphemy,’ muttered the Fugger. ‘Christ and Luther both.’

‘If blasphemy is the worst awaiting us beyond this door, Fugger’ – Haakon was crossing himself as he spoke – ‘I myself will
be well pleased.’

Then he raised his huge foot and kicked the door in.

This room was as light as the other was gloomy, for candles glimmered on every surface. Hundreds filled the room with their
glow, balanced on the fire guard, hanging from the ceiling in wire frames, thrust into rough holes scored into the walls,
covering the long refectory table, scores of them set out a small hand’s breadth from each other. Only one area of the table
was uncovered by dancing flame, and such was the brightness after the gloom for a moment none could see why that was. The
shadow was in the form of a body, that was clear. When their eyes had accustomed themselves they could make out the substance
of a body as well, and see what the candles finally illuminated so well: a man crucified on the table.

He was small in height but large in girth, his distended belly thrusting up his brown cassock. Three stilettos pinned him
in place, one for each hand, and one through crossed ankles. Blood had pooled all around him, flowing in streams down the
table, diverted here and there by the endless candles like log jams in a river. He had lost a lot of it.

While the Fugger turned away, unable to contemplate the sight, Jean, Haakon and Januc went to each of the cruel daggers and,
at a signal from Jean, pulled them sharply out. The delirium that had caused the man to chant was swept away in a howl of
pain, to be replaced by the oblivion of the faint.

Januc raised his stiletto. ‘Italian?’

‘Sienese. Look at the base of the blade.’

There, lodged just above the grip, was a familiar symbol – the fighting cock of the Rooster
contrada.

‘Seems we share a common enemy with this man.’ Jean threw the dagger at the door. It lodged there, quivering.

While Januc and Haakon went, candelabras in hand, to search the upper levels of the monastery, Jean and the Fugger set about
staunching the bleeding and dressing the man’s stigmatic wounds. It was when they had wrapped the limbs in bandages torn from
a table cloth and were moving him to a chair beside the fireplace that he woke with a shriek.

‘Am I in heaven? Have I joined my Saviour?’

‘You are still of this earth, Brother,’ said the Fugger.

‘Then who are you, behind your masks? Are you with that accursed Cibo and his hellhounds? If you are, then better to have
left me to die in poor imitation of our Lord, for you have brought damnation to His sanctuary.’

Jean put a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘We seek the Archbishop but we do not wish him well. He is our enemy, as he seems to
be yours.’

‘Double damned be he who comes with the kiss of a friend and is my foe.’

‘Amen. What has happened here, Brother?’

The man looked at the Fugger and smiled, despite the pain, as the one-handed man clumsily adjusted his legs for him.

‘I have not been called “Brother” since I took charge of this house of God. It is quite refreshing.’

‘You are the Abbot of Marsheim?’ Jean asked.

‘I am. Would that I were just a simple brother still, and had not witnessed this day’s events.’

‘What happened, Father?’

‘My son, I could not find words in any of the five languages I speak that could come close to describing this day. But tell
me – my flock, my monks, how are they?’

Haakon and Januc entered then, shaking their heads at Jean’s look, indicating that all above was as it was below – another
circle of hell.

‘Something … possesses them,’ Jean said.

‘It is the demons that Cibo unleashed, for there were none before he arrived.’

‘Tell us, Father.’

The Abbot told of the Italian’s arrival, how he arrogantly demanded lodging for the night. He had expected another sort of
stay, for the monastery had a reputation for an excellent cellar and a lax attitude to morals.

‘Much like he was used to in Italy, no doubt. But there are those of us here in Germany who, even though we may not like the
havoc wrought by Luther, appreciate much of what he has done. God’s house was corrupt, and I a too-willing participant in
that corruption. No more! I set my house in order, returned to the simple virtues of my vows. I myself began a fast and have
eaten no bread or flesh for a week. I can afford the abstinence, as you can see.’ That gentle smile again, swiftly fled. ‘That
did not suit His Eminence or his mad brother. They took over the house, encouraged the monks in their former ways, brought
food from the village, wine, bread, even women.’

He winced, in memory and pain.

‘I knew the Devil was abroad once more. I still held to my fast, but everyone else began to gorge like pigs at a trough, most
of my monks joining in. But, something … something happened. A door was opened and the Beast unleashed into the world. This
morning, Brother Andreas threw himself from the tower, screaming that the fires of hell were gaping for him. His legs shattered,
yet he got up and ran through the gates. And he was just the first. Soon everyone had a demon inside them – my monks, the
Italians, all. And because I did not, and tried to cast theirs out, they descended on me and perpetrated this sacrilege.’

He raised his bandaged hands and stared at them in horror.

Jean leant in. ‘And where have they gone, Father?’

‘To the village, I think. Most of their men-at-arms were
lodged there. They shouted that they needed an army to defend them.’

A scratching at the door had them turning with weapons raised. The terrified face of a monk appeared and he was seized before
he could bolt.

‘Do not harm him!’ called the Abbot. ‘He is my confessor, Brother Anselm.’

The frightened young man was brought into the room. He wept when he saw the Abbot’s wounds.

‘My son, my son,’ said the Abbot fondly, a tear running down his face. ‘Anselm joined me in my quest for purification. He
fasted and prayed too. The only one. The only one.’

Jean led his men outside, leaving the weeping men to their reunion.

‘Did you hear? The only men not possessed of the demons are ones who did not eat or drink,’ said Januc.

‘They are also the only ones actively seeking God in this accursed place. I don’t see how you can blame the food. The Devil
strikes where he will,’ argued the Fugger.

Jean interrupted before Haakon could speak. ‘Food or fiend, we do not want to stay here. What we seek is in the town, in the
midst of the madness. It will be dangerous enough. But while Cibo’s bodyguard are fighting the Devil’s legions, we could not
ask for a greater distraction.’

‘Let us make use of it while we can,’ the Norwegian agreed, lifting his axe onto his shoulder, ‘and get free of this terrible
place.’

Mounting their horses, each calling for the protection of their own god in their own way, the four men rode into the heart
of St Anthony’s Fire.

‘Giancarlo.’

What a lovely voice. Like an altar boy’s, that innocent.

‘Go back, Giancarlo. Holiness. Giancarlo Cibo. Back to the inn.’

But I just came from there.

He tried to locate the angelic face, but it moved, a shadow slipping round to his other side.

‘It is different there now. Order. Is restored. Love. Is restored. Friends are there, a brother flesh of your flesh blood
of your …’

Blood.

Now he remembered. Blood had driven him from that smoke-filled room in the first place. His own, coughed up in unimaginable
quantities, until he would have drowned had he not found some air. Then other people’s blood, he’d forgotten whose. Big men
with weapons had become very scared. Frightened animals fled or fought. Fleeing had brought them to the town, from the slaughter
at the monastery. But demons could not be escaped in such a manner. Demons had preceded them.

‘But they’ve gone.’ The sweet voice came from above him now, as if along a sunbeam. ‘Didn’t I tell you? Go see for yourself.
After all, there’s nothing for you in this stable, is there, Giancarlo?’

There wasn’t, not now. Not now he’d learnt the truth that changed everything.

Hell wasn’t buried deep. Its roof was a finger’s push through the crumbly crust of skin and old bones that made up the stable
floor. Hell was directly beneath his feet. No, it wasn’t quite true. The chambers were there; if he stamped the sufferers
would hear him again and renew their terrible wailing. But hell had burst its petty bindings. Hell was loose in the world.

‘Yes, Giancarlo, yes! Hell is everywhere. Except at the inn. Where your friends are.’

No one who speaks so sweetly can tell lies,
he thought.

He was wrong.

He pushed the inn door open and found no friends inside, no brothers. Wild dogs snarled at each other, teeth drawn back in
a rictus of terror. They had human bodies, but that was all. He always knew his brother’s lycanthropic tendencies. For
the sake of good government he had restrained them. Now, Franchetto stood on a window ledge, naked, baying at a moon only
he could see, lodged just next to the fireball sun. Beneath him a pack of what used to be called his men snapped at another
man before them. They had weapons drawn, but none such as Cibo had seen before. Spade-headed rats wriggled together in the
hands of one, like a furred whip. A chair leg was crested by a scythe’s blade, a pot had daggers thrust through it. All were
levelled in defence of their master; for this other man, cloaked and helmeted, was trying to approach the howling Duke, his
intent clear – to wrestle the werewolf to the floor and throttle it.

Something about this figure seemed familiar. The Archbishop tried to speak, to command, but his voice came out too slowly,
distorted and deep. All other sounds seemed normal compared to it: the howling from the streets, the baying on the ledge,
the wailing of the damned a finger’s thrust below his feet. Finally, he got a word out.

‘Heineeriich.’

The figure heard. The figure started to turn, as slowly as the Archbishop’s speech had come.

At the first glimpse of scarred flesh, Giancarlo Cibo began to scream. Like the words before it, the scream emerged into a
world run down, where time had ceased its normal function. Nevertheless, sound continued to emerge, matching in pace the revelation
of flesh.

Heinrich von Solingen had never been a handsome man and a virgin’s tears had destroyed most of what had made his face human.
But now, Cibo saw a sight that finally brought his screams into alignment with time. For as Heinrich’s eyes swivelled round
to fix on his master’s, a long snake slithered from the cave of one socket and slipped, so slowly, into the other.

Cibo did not stop running until his back was pressed against the town well. Ice had replaced flame on every surface of the
main square of Marsheim. The cold reached down
inside him like frozen knives plunging within his body, stopping his breath and forcing icicles of blood from his throat.

Something moved at his breast. He tried to lower his eyes, but it took such an effort.
What might be down there,
he thought,
held within the folds of my cloak? I have a pocket there, no, a pouch or … that’s it, a bag! There’s something in it.

He forced his eyes down. On his chest was a pouch. It was made of purple velvet yet it was somehow also completely transparent,
for he could see within it, pointing up at him, a hand with six fingers. As soon as he saw it, the hand formed into a fist
and began to beat at his chest. He knew the pounding would not stop until his heart shattered into a thousand icy shards.

‘Jesu, mercy!’ he cried as agony spread across his body.

A rent appeared in the skin of the earth, hell slowly opening for him, every blow of the Witch of England driving him down
into it. He could do nothing to stop his own fall. There was only the pounding, and a heat so white his skin began to dissolve.

‘Jesus!’ he called again, knowing it would be the last word he would ever speak. He looked in farewell to the road south,
the one that led past the abbey and on over the mountains to his homeland.

Four horsemen rode into the square. This, at least, was a vision he had expected – the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, there
to usher in the destruction of the world. They were to be welcomed, for it meant plenty of company in the descent to Hades.
Enough, perhaps, for the Devil to be too busy to deal with a lowly archbishop for a while. Yet, even here, there was something
wrong with the vision. He did not expect consistency, not in Marsheim. But of the four horsemen, only two were meant to be
bringers of war. And all four here had weapons in their hands.

‘Where is plague? Where famine?’ he shouted at them, then
realised it was a mistake. They hadn’t noticed him before. Now they had.

There was something familiar about the man who dismounted. Cibo knew he had seen him before. And when the man reached down
and picked Anne Boleyn’s hand off his chest, Cibo remembered where. He even knew his name.

‘Rombaud. Jean Rombaud,’ he croaked.

The executioner gave no sign he had heard, just kept staring down into the velvet bag. He didn’t even look at Cibo when he
got up and moved away. This annoyed the Archbishop. He deserved more than that. He had left this man in a gibbet cage to rot.
Was he not worthy of revenge?

‘Kill me.’ The words came clear in his new-found tongue. ‘You cannot leave me here. Kill me.’

The executioner didn’t look back until he was in his saddle again. Finally, he said something Cibo couldn’t quite hear. Then
the four horsemen rode from the square. Hell opened once more and Giancarlo Cibo’s further pleas were lost in the wailing
of the damned.

Jean had said, ‘You are in hell. Why should I set you free?’

To Januc and Haakon, it was incomprehensible. To have a mortal enemy at your mercy – why would any man let that opportunity
pass?

Jean could not explain it. The moment he saw Cibo, slouched against the town well, covered in vomit and blood, Jean had thought,
It ends here. I will use my sword, perhaps for the last time, to take the head of our enemy.
But it was Anne herself who stopped him. Not by appearing in a flash of celestial light, nor even by gently whispering within
his mind. It was the memory of a word he had spoken to her, sworn his oath by, recalled now by the touch of that hand, even
though he felt it through the velvet of the bag. The hand he had kissed, been shocked by, heard her laugh about. The hand
he had sworn, by that word, to save from the forces of hate embodied within the man at his feet.