The French Executioner (7 page)

He’d reached the edge of the village when something whirligigged out of a bush, the black shape splitting into two, the top
section cawing and flapping, the bottom leaping and scratching.

‘Caw caw!’ yelled the Fugger, echoing Daemon’s cries. ‘Which means, roughly: How found you the village – brought us some food?
– how far do we travel and when will we get the hand hand hand?’

Jean reached out and grabbed the Fugger by the throat. He held on through a few more shudders and squawks until all was calm.
Then he slowly loosened, but did not quite release, his grip.

‘Never,’ he said quietly, ‘never again declare our goal.’

The Fugger hung limply and nodded. ‘We will be silent, Daemon and I. Not once shall we mention the hand.’

‘Hand hand!’ cawed the bird, circling above them.

‘By the soiled seat of a saint!’ yelled Jean, bending to pick up and cast a stone at the raven, which floated gently over
it. ‘What have you done?’

‘Well, you were gone so long.’ The Fugger’s tone was accusing. ‘We had to talk about something.’

‘Jesu spare me!’ spat the executioner and strode off down the road.

He didn’t look back. He didn’t need to. The warm wind that blew up the valley carried with it the unique scent of the gibbet
keeper, refining and ripening under the hot sun. It didn’t help his temper for he knew that any unobserved progress with the
Fugger through this land was doomed: the nostrils of those ahead would tell that something rank that way came long before
the sight caused all to reach for cudgel and stone. If he kept his promise to the Fugger – and he didn’t see how he could
start breaking vows now – he would have to find some way for them to proceed in amity together.

About an hour’s walk from the village, Jean could bear it no more. He suddenly left the road and made his way down to the
stream they’d been following. It broadened into a little pool shaded by three willows and surrounded by sweet-smelling rosemary
bushes, which he thankfully sank his head into, rubbing the prickly leaves to release the scent. Then, as he bent down to
cup his hands into the water, he heard the whirligig approach a second before the stench hit him. When the Fugger began to
lap the water like a dog, Jean stood up, stepped sideways and planted his boot straight up his backside.

The Fugger plunged into the water, surfaced, spat water and let out a mournful wail. ‘I drown, I drown! So cold, so chilly
on my bones! Let me out!’

Jean stood square on the bank and unsheathed his sword.

‘You are not coming out until you have washed some of that stench from you.’

‘No!’ howled the Fugger. ‘I’m drowning!’

‘Nonetheless,’ said Jean, and as the Fugger tried to pull himself out, he sliced at the two shoulders of the Fugger’s clothing
sack and the whole thing fell off him, leaving nothing but a bare, blackened creature flailing around. The flat of a blade
on his haunch sent him sprawling again, soon to be joined by two large clumps of rosemary Jean had quickly sliced from the
bushes.

‘Use them to scrub off that filth. Then use the river mud. Rub it all over your body, and especially through your hair.’ It
was how he used to bathe as a child.

‘I’ll die of cold.’

‘You will if you don’t keep moving.’

Shivering, quaking, emitting a steady moan, the Fugger began to do as he was told, at first with little vigour. But as the
layers began to drop off and cloud the water around him, he ceased his noise and began to use the rosemary branches more forcefully.
A noise began again, and Jean made out a song under the Fugger’s breath as he began to range around the pool in search of
cleaner water. When Jean was satisfied, he allowed the Fugger out and gave him the newly acquired cloak.

Sitting the shaking form down on a stone, he said, ‘And now Monsieur is clean, perhaps a new hairstyle?’ and, without waiting
for a response, began to ply his barber’s shears around the unfortunate’s head. Shanks, knotted locks and rat’s-nest curls
tumbled to the ground as he trimmed the head right down to the pate, the only way to get rid of such undergrowth. He then
began on the beard, cutting it to a soldier’s fashionable length.

Finished, he stood back to study his work.

Before him sat a very frightened young man with a high forehead fringed by cropped hair that was actually of a reddish hew,
and a red beard that tapered to a point two fingers’ width below his chin. The sharp features were not just the product of
hunger; high cheekbones were divided
from each other by a long thin nose and piercing blue eyes darted nervously about.

‘What have you done to me?’ the Fugger cried.

‘See for yourself.’ Jean gestured to the pool.

Lowering himself cautiously as if expecting another shove, the Fugger glanced down once, quickly, then looked away for a long
moment. When he looked again he held his gaze, running his fingers up and down, exploring his face. After a while, he just
stopped and stared, tried to pretend that was all he was doing. Seeing water flow from the eyes to join the pool, Jean turned
away to pack up his barber’s gear.

‘Thank you,’ said the Fugger at last. ‘I thought this person was gone for ever. His soul was stolen, do you see, along with
…’ He raised the stump of his arm to Jean. ‘Now he has come back.’

Then the tears really came, and he made no attempt to conceal them. Jean moved away, sat and waited; for though time was pressing
he knew that some men who had emerged from a great madness, as from battle or the terrible sack of a city, needed to howl
like this. He had done it once himself, in a burning church in Tuscany, a lifetime before. There was nothing to do but wait,
as someone had once waited for him.

Eventually, he could tell the shivering came more from cold than emotion so he went to his bag.

‘Here.’ He threw the German soldier’s clothes across.

‘For me?’ A voice filled with wonder, hands turning the material over and over.

‘They may be a little large, and gaudy,’ Jean said, ‘but they are of good quality. He obviously lived well.’

The Fugger slipped his head into the wool shirt, found the arm holes. Jean had chosen the smallest set of clothes but the
breeches were still vast. A length of rope restrained some of the bagginess, while clumps of grass filled in the front of
the heavy boots. The scarlet-and-black jerkin’s sleeves were rolled up and the cloak over the top disguised the irregularities,
hiding the worst of the peacock display.

‘Not bad,’ said Jean as the Fugger moved around him. ‘And the smell’s an improvement. Even if it has a touch of German sweat
about it.’

‘Well, I will add to it then,’ the Fugger spoke softly, ‘for I am German too.’

‘A German, eh? From where?’

‘From Munster.’

‘And did you not say, when we were, uh, negotiating back there at the gibbet, that you were a banker’s son?’

‘I did.’

Jean scratched his head.

‘I am not one for questions. A man’s business is his own,’ he said. ‘But how, by the useless balls of a Dominican monk, did
a German banker end up running a gibbet in France?’

The Fugger laughed. It seemed a strange sensation until he realised he was doing it for no reason other than pure pleasure.

‘You have a very mixed way of cursing, Monsieur.’

‘I have been in too many countries’ armies, perhaps, Monsieur Fugger.’

With the laughter came another feeling, and the Fugger raised his one good hand to Jean.

‘The Fugger who kept a gibbet in France?’ he said. ‘It is a long tale and a strange one.’

‘That is good.’ Jean rose. ‘The longer and stranger the better, for we have a night’s march ahead of us. We must be in Tours
by dawn.’

And with that, hefting sword and pack, he headed back to the road.

The Fugger stood for a moment alone on the stream bank. Stooping suddenly, he scooped up some tangled skeins of hair, running
them through his fingers before throwing them back into the fast-moving water. As the last traces of his recent life swirled
away, caught and burst through a small dam of reeds, he murmured, ‘And wash my sins away.’

Then he turned and hurried after the Frenchman.

Giancarlo Cibo, Archbishop of Siena, was enjoying all the hospitality the church in Tours could offer him, which for a small
provincial town wasn’t so bad. His host, the Bishop of Tours, knew the favour of so powerful a churchman as Cibo would help
him in his quest to secure the recently vacant See of Orleans. So he was making a strenuous effort to see his noble guest
was well entertained.

The orgy, while not reaching Roman levels, was nonetheless of a high standard. The Bishop’s mistress had overseen it, from
the elaborate feast – swans roasted and dressed again in their feathers, a whole bear cooked in its skin and clutching a wild
boar in its arms, a suckling pig in its mouth – to the after-dinner antics. Some of the town’s most expensive whores, who
counted the Bishop’s mistress as a former member, together with a troop of the palace guard, reenacted the biblical story
of Sodom and Gomorrah, with a strong emphasis on the Sodom. The climax came when the mistress herself, as Lot’s wife, was
covered in ‘salt’, which turned out to be confectioner’s sugar, soon to be licked off by two muscular soldiers dressed as
Satan’s satyrs, cloven-hoofed and horned, who then proceeded to take her simultaneously, thus demonstrating the true penalty
for looking back.

The Archbishop was invited to join in at any stage, but since he never liked to be second in anything, three virgins
were produced, dressed as noviciates. He knew they were neither by the expert way they plied their scourges, causing him just
the right level of pain yet never drawing blood. However, they looked young enough and gave suitably virginal screams when
he ‘deflowered’ them one after the other. Under their habits they too were sugar-coated.

Altogether a most satisfying night. Especially after all his tribulations in achieving his victory. He’d had to stay in disguise
for so long, for Princes of the Roman Church were not popular in England, to say the least. The week spent pursuing that damned
executioner through France! Sleeping in flea-ridden inns or roadside encampments, his cough had worsened considerably.

And yet, what lay now in his saddle bags made all the suffering worthwhile. Anne Boleyn’s distinctive hand was a mighty weapon
to control men’s minds. Cibo understood the power of such symbols even if he was not a believer in them as literal facts.
How often had he mocked the credulous fools he bent to his will with the healing touch of St John’s cloak or the laying on
of St Agnes’ femur? Belief in the symbol was all, faith so touching, so often effective. But he knew it was the belief, not
the piece of moth-eaten cloth or crumbling bone, that had the effect. That belief gave him the power to control men’s minds.

It was why he’d gone to that chill, damp island of Britain. When he’d heard of Anne’s forthcoming execution he’d remembered
all the curious tales connected with her, not least the oddity of her six-fingered hand, and the fact it had shaken the Holy
Church by leading that most Catholic monarch, Henry, away from his faith. He knew that if he took it, embalmed it or even
just kept it as a skeleton, it would be a far more potent weapon than most of the bogus relics floating around Europe.

Yet perhaps, as an archbishop, I should have more faith. After all, since I took the hand my cough
has
got better!
The absurd thought made him laugh. And the man waiting
patiently on the other side of the room took that as a signal to come forward. Watching the German approach, he thought,
Heinrich von Solingen believes in the power of her hand. He believes in it all, for only total belief can justify his terrible
need to savage and kill.

Cibo smiled. He had discovered early on that this man’s propensity for violence was a superb weapon and he had channelled
it accordingly. All he had to do was make Heinrich believe his sins were washed away by his service, his loyalty to whatever
Christ’s representative on earth – himself – needed him to do. It had led to some very special sinning, in the years of their
association. He felt happy that he could offer the man such spectacular opportunities for transgression and redemption.

But the man himself? How dreary he is,
the Archbishop thought,
standing there with his eyes studiously averted. He does not even dress like a mercenary any more. With his black, dull clothes,
his white-blond hair close-cropped, he looks more like a priest.

The puckered pink scar running from the right eyebrow to just above the jaw was hardly priest-like though. And neither were
the many memories Cibo had of Heinrich with a weapon in his hand, the most recent one when his captain had erased the witnesses
his former soldiers had become. Not as showy as the Archbishop would have liked, mere swift throat-slitting of drunken fools.
But death was the best preliminary to any orgy, he always felt.

‘Pain and pleasure, eh, Heinrich?’

Heinrich von Solingen kept his eyes fixed above his reclining master and the naked whores draped over him. He had followed
this man for eight years and performed the most unspeakable acts for him. As a loyal son of the Church it was his duty – more,
his personal crusade, to defy the Protestant heresy.
But why,
he thought for the thousandth time,
does Mother Church allow herself to be defended by men like this?

It was always a problem for him, the contrast between flesh
and faith. That holy rebel Luther – who was, at least, a good German through and through, he thought – is right in that. Rome
is corrupt beyond estimation. But loyalty to the Church isn’t a changeable position, he told himself again. Heinrich was aware
his master knew he believed that to his core. It gave the degenerate power over him. He hated that.

‘My Lord?’

‘Heinrich?’

‘Shall I make the preparations to depart at dawn?’