Gregor decided he could take the silence no longer. ‘What? What is it, Heine, old comrade? Why do you stare so?’
The cobalt-blue eyes never left him. ‘I just wanted to make sure you remembered.’
Hastily pouring him some wine, Gregor said, ‘Heinrich, my friend, let’s not talk about old times, eh? Sit. Sit! Here, drink this. What happened? You look terrible.’
The stone had caused a giant swelling at his temple; it throbbed violently, causing pain to shoot throughout his head. Blood was still caked in his ear, which he hoped was all that accounted for his faulty hearing, the ringing that dominated all other sound. He drained the wine, gestured for more, said, ‘It does not matter what happened. All that matters is what’s going to happen. You owe me.’
‘You already said, Heinrich, and of course, do you think I would ever forget? An oath, an oath I swore to you, old comrade. Here, some food, more wine, of course. Ask, and if a poor man with limited means can oblige you, you know he will.’
Von Solingen looked at the smile that never reached the pig-like eyes, the face that had doubled in jowl and fat since he’d last seen it. He’d never liked Gregor, indeed had enjoyed watching from the shadows as the sisters plied their knives and firebrands, only stepping from them at the last because Gregor had a rat’s nose for things hidden and if he was in the house there was booty to be had there. Yet he also knew how much a man could hate being bound by an oath of loyalty. He’d cursed his to Giancarlo Cibo every day, and while he would not waver from it, he could not be sure of the dog before him. He knew he’d have to throw him a bone as well.
‘I need some people killed.’
‘Easy. Name them.’
‘I do not know their names. There are three, possibly four, and they are hiding outside, waiting for me.’
‘I will call my men. Six should do.’
‘Make it twelve. These enemies are strong, and clever.’
‘Twelve men?’ Gregor sucked in his lower lip. Twelve was expensive, because he’d have to go outside his own group.
Heinrich saw the calculation, the hesitation. He threw the bone.
‘And there will be gold in it. Plenty of gold.’
‘Heine,’ said Maltese Gregor, beaming at last, ‘it really is such a pleasure to see you again.’
On his provisioning expedition, the Fugger had gleaned other information from his talkative new friend the offal vendor.
‘Two fleets sail at dawn, of equal size. One to the Indies and the other to Livorno.’
‘Tuscany.’ Beck’s voice had a strange timbre to it, eyes clouding.
Jean noticed, looked away and nodded.
‘So our search is narrowed down to half the vessels. We know which fleet the Archbishop sails with. He’ll be making for Siena.’
‘And the fleets contain slaves. You can always tell by the aroma.’ Haakon sniffed and threw down a last pork bone in disgust. ‘Of all the fates a man can face, chained to an oar on one of those death galleys must be the worst.’
‘Wait!’ Jean stood swiftly. ‘Here comes our man.’
The trail they took was short, for Heinrich went to ground again in another, larger brothel. It was harder to cover, for there were three entrances, out of sight of each other. Beck, Jean and Haakon took one each while the Fugger scurried between them with messages.
Jean watched the front, his anxious mood heightened by the parade that passed before him. The town was seething with the sailors and soldiers of both convoys, attempting to get into as much trouble as they could before returning to their ships. Every inn was crammed with a writhing mass of humanity; ale, wine and brandy was churned out as fast as it could be watered down. Only the more expensive whores operated under a roof; the others despatched clients in every back alley, in every nook with the slightest of shadows, just one of the many causes of fights which broke out everywhere. It was bacchanal and battle, orgy and riot, lit by firebrands, with musicians vying with drunk and full-voiced sailors to provide the musical accompaniment.
‘Come on, come on!’
Jean’s hand clutched and unclutched on the grip of the sword hidden under his cloak. But his desire could not speed the night. It wore on, hour after noisy hour, while men staggered into them, offered drink or violence, rutted within their sight. Many came and many left the house of pleasure, but not their man. And as the hour got later, or earlier, the crowd thinned as more and more headed for their boats, staggering, carried, accompanied by cheers or curses.
‘Haakon wonders if the blow to the head has finally killed the bastard and that’s why he hasn’t appeared,’ the Fugger said, the tenth time he’d come round. He was the only one who seemed less than exhausted by another night without sleep; but the way he saw it, he’d been asleep for a thousand years under a gibbet.
Jean had wondered the same.
‘I could go in and see.’
The Fugger was doing the strange shuffling dance he called standing still, and Jean thought that of them all, he’d attract the least attention. The town was mad tonight, so it was the sane and the sober who stood out.
‘I don’t think that will be necessary,’ he said, for over the Fugger’s shoulder a party of particularly raucous seamen poured out and behind them the tall figure of Heinrich loomed in the brothel doorway. Ducking down, Jean watched him speak briefly to someone out of sight, then turn and head down the street towards the harbour, along the same route the mob had taken.
‘Go, tell the others the direction and take up your post,’ he whispered, and set off after the German.
‘Let me come, please.’ The Fugger’s face twisted in appeal. ‘I know I’m not much of a fighter but I … I …’
Jean paused just long enough to squeeze the young man’s shoulder.
‘We need you to speed our escape, you know the plan. And our rendezvous, if things go awry. Each to his own strength, Fugger, remember? We’ll be coming back fast. Without you, we wouldn’t make it.’
And with that he turned and followed his prey.
The Fugger quickly passed the word to Haakon and Beck, then made for the stables where their horses lay. Fenrir greeted him with the growl that had seen off anyone nosy enough to poke among the hay, where the saddle bags lay hidden. Sitting on one, he tried to still his limbs for the wait.
A raucous caw came from a beam above.
‘Aye, Daemon,’ he said, ‘I hope so too.’
Heinrich had turned three corners by the time Beck and Haakon caught up with Jean.
‘At last,’ the Norseman muttered as he fell into step. At his side he clutched the axe in one hand and in the other a large jar filled with lamp oil. Beck held a covered lantern in which a flame burned. They had decided that they might need some distraction at the dockside if they were to slip aboard a boat and steal what they’d come for, and nothing distracts a sailor as quickly as his boat going up in flames.
What was strange was that their quarry’s turns first seemed to be moving them parallel to the waterfront rather than towards it, then away into an area of rotting wharves and abandoned warehouses. Little light shone here, only as much as the approaching dawn and their own small lamp could shed. At times Jean thought they’d lost their quarry, and he was aware, as the noises of the town faded behind them, of their quickened feet making more and more sound in the growing silence, lightly though they were trying to tread. Then, just when he’d begin to truly worry, he’d catch sight of the broad back striding on, turning ahead of them, taking them ever deeper into a labyrinth of roadways.
Beck said, ‘He must be deaf as well as stupid,’ when they rounded a corner into a long straight strip and saw that they were now following air. The German had indeed vanished.
They rushed forward, careless of noise now. In the dimness before them they could see a large, broken cart in the middle of the lane, a wheel gone, down on one axle. As they ran towards it, they realised it was the only place that could hide a man. They were right and they were wrong, for indeed the man they soug
ht appeared from behind it, sword in hand, but six other men followed him, three armed with halberds – the half pike, cutting and slashing weapon favoured by mercenaries.
A crossbow bolt pinged off the axe Haakon jerked up, another thumping into a doorframe beside them. Beck reached for the slingshot slung around her shoulders, got it into her hands and loaded in two heartbeats. Forefingers found the loop, left hand placed the killing stone in the pouch, the right grabbed the knotted end and the left pulled the cords taut. The others ducked as leather and rope whirled over them, the stone unleashed finding an immediate target in one crossbowman, reeling him backwards with a cry.
‘It’s a trap!’ yelled Haakon, somewhat obviously, weaving to create a moving target.
Jean grabbed Beck, shoving the youth the way they’d come. He was not going to stand and fight, not against crossbows, not until he knew more about the odds. They ran.
‘Now!’ called Gregor from behind them, and from the end of the street they’d entered seven more figures emerged from the shadows to block their path.
Hesitation is death in a street fight. Jean and Haakon were among this new enemy in a moment, following the large vessel of oil the big man hurled into the foe. Beck stopped, spun, hurled a stone at the eagerest of those behind them. He pitched backwards, arms flailing into two of the others. Ducking under a whirling sword and axe, she drew her long dagger. She slipped to the side as a sword thrust at her, dragging the knife in a swift cut across the lunging hand.
Blade rang against blade, axe haft blocked cudgel and bill, momentum going with the charging headsmen. Adopting a low stance, stepping under an overhead blow from a halberd, Jean swept a cut at knee height, severing the tendon. The man, carried forward by the momentum of his own weapon, fell over him. A sword cut downwards. Jean blocked with a sloping parry that swept the man’s blade to the ground, drawing the head level to the hilt of the square-headed sword. Jean smashed it into the face before him.
Yelling like his berserker ancestors, Haakon’s charge had carried him deep into the enemy, his axe swing scattering men into a semi-circle before him. Moving lightly for his size, he dodged to his left as blades came snickering in, then planted his front foot and swung the axe back, catching two of the weapons in a sweep that sent them flying off into the dark.
They held their brief advantage but Jean, with a swift glance back, knew that it could not last. Six wraiths were gliding up the alley, Heinrich among them.
Ducking under another swinging axe, Jean found his head close to the boyish one of Beck.
‘Get out. Now!’
‘I cannot—’
‘Remember your cause. The Fugger knows ours. And he knows where to meet. If we are not there in a month, then—’ Jean parried a sword thrust from one of the two men left in front, his weapon forming the upright of a cross with it. Launching himself off the ground he headbutted the man between the eyes. ‘Then your right arm is all your own again.’
Jean had opened a gap and reluctantly Beck took it, leaping the body on the ground, running ten paces then stopping to glance back. The other group had hesitated at the decimation of their comrades, but now, urged on from behind by Heinrich and another man, fat and shouting, they began to advance again. The two disarmed men had regained their weapons and were circling, keeping out of range of the axe, awaiting the reinforcements. One of them turned towards her. Still she hesitated, before a crossbow bolt hummed past her ear and another cry from Jean sent her running towards the town.
The renewed enemy closed on them. Haakon, burying his axe head in an enemy’s arm, wasn’t able to remove it in time to parry the swing of a halberd shaft. Turning his head, a glancing blow caught him and sent him reeling to the side, his weapon left behind. Jean, who had turned aside two thrusts, spun in a circle, sweeping his blade at head height round and around, causing all to duck. There was even a moment when a gap opened up for him and he too could have followed Beck’s route away. But then he saw Haakon go down, their eyes meeting.
‘Go!’ cried the big man.
But Jean hesitated – and that is death in a street fight. The butt of a halberd caught him hard in the stomach, and then they were on to him. But the enthusiasm of the kill made them get in each other’s way. Buffeted, knocked to the ground, he took a slash to the shoulder, another to the thigh.
‘Enough!’ shouted Maltese Gregor, and his own men, used to the repercussions when he was not instantly obeyed, stepped backwards. One of the hired men, swept up in the bloodlust, aimed a killing blow at the felled Haakon and received a pike butt in the face from Gregor himself, who yelled, ‘I said enough! What sport is there in spearing hogs? Besides’ – and here he turned to the tall man beside him – ‘we have our client’s wishes to consider.’
Heinrich von Solingen had taken no part in the fighting, though he’d stood there with sword in hand. His head still throbbed as if a thousand anvils were being beaten inside it, and his vision added a shadow figure to any real one before him. He felt like he was going to vomit, as he had been doing intermittently all day. He couldn’t remember when he had last eaten and wondered if he ever would again. So when they all turned expectantly to him, looking to him to provide the death strokes, he looked back at the two dozen faces swimming before him, down at the writhing snake bodies on the ground, and couldn’t even find the strength to lift his sword. He closed his eyes to steady himself and staggered. Somewhere within he thought he heard a bell strike four times, then some distant cheering.
‘What hour?’ A swollen tongue made speech hard.
‘Four bells,’ someone said. ‘The fleets make ready to sail with the tide.’
The fleet. The Archbishop’s boat. Heinrich knew he had to be on it. He took one step towards the harbour and stopped. Someone had asked him a question. Two jowly, greased faces swam into view.
‘How would you like them to meet their end?’ Maltese Gregor smiled at him. ‘It’s your choice.’
Of course, the enemy. He had succeeded once again in ending a threat to his master. This dog had been hung in a gibbet but had lived to plague them. It was an outrage, to escape his just punishment in this way. He should be put into the embrace of the iron cage again, as an example to all.
But there was no time. Four bells. Noise from the harbour growing. The fleet departing.
‘Hang them,’ he muttered, then the words came more clearly. ‘Hang them high like the dogs they are.’
He watched as the two semi-conscious men were pulled into position under a beam, hands bound, nooses placed around their necks. Four men gathered at the end of the bigger man’s rope, three for the Frenchman. Both men were hauled upright until only the tips of their toes remained on the ground. At a signal from Gregor, the rope men heaved again. Jean and Haakon were hoisted off the ground.
The wriggling and writhing turned Heinrich’s stomach again. He retched, and sour bile filled his mouth. He knew he could only stay upright a short while longer.
Four bells. The harbour. He turned and headed away.
Gregor watched him go, calling, ‘Farewell, Heine, old comrade. You are welcome. See you again …’ and turning to his men adding, ‘… in hell.’
Dancing in the air, unbelievable pain filling his body, wide awake now and dying, Jean watched his enemy walk away, so slowly, raising and lowering his feet as if it took minutes to complete each action. His head was being wrenched from his shoulders. He thought of his neck lengthening, expanding, growing into the perfect target for a sword cut. His insides churned and voided, he had no control, nothing left to call his own, his whole frame emptying and pouring his life out into this alley. Suddenly, somewhere in a distant world the other side of agony, two eyes appeared, huge black pools, and he started to swim towards them. Someone opened a door behind them, flooding them with light, an infinite brightness that yet contained some tiny darkness, shapes growing from wriggling circles of form into bodies, into a woman and a child, into Lysette and Ariel. They were smiling and waving to him, beckoning
him on to a world where all this terrible pain would disappear. It was already receding when the man whose identity he no longer remembered placed a foot around the corner and began to move beyond it, and it seemed like Jean himself built up speed at that moment, rushing now to flow into the light.
Only one thing disturbed him: behind his wife and child a hand was growing, overshadowing them, reaching up to tower over them. It had six fingers, and when the man finally turned the corner and disappeared, the sixth one, the little crooked finger, bent in to fold his loved ones in a crushing embrace.
And then he was tumbling down, falling from his great height back to agony. In the moment before oblivion, he heard a harsh voice bellow, ‘Easy, you scabs. We don’t want to damage the merchandise.’
Louis St Mark de la Vallerie, captain of His Majesty’s ship the Perseus, clutched a scented handkerchief to his extraordinarily large and very sensitive nose in a feeble attempt to dissolve the smells engulfing him. It was always the same when he rejoined the galley. It took him days, sometimes weeks to get used again to the sickening stench of shit, urine and sweat floating up from the rowers’ benches below. A few warm days had doubled the foulness, and he knew it would only grow worse. He was just relieved it was a relatively short run to start with, thanks to a last-minute order diverting his ship to Valletta where he was to subvert certain Knights of St John with the considerable amount of gold he had on board, to lure them away from their allegiance to the Emperor. He did not question the order – he was His Majesty’s servant after all. In truth, he relished the little break before the true fighting season began, when he’d again be shepherding convoys around the Mediterranean, spending weeks out of any port or civilisation. In a fleet the stench was always worse. Your own ship’s foulness you gradually got used to.