Tannhauser 02: The Twelve Children of Paris Read Free Page A

paused. He had little faith that Orlandu would find the message in the near future, or that, even if he did, the porter would not tamper with any reply. He had noted a tavern on the opposite corner of the street.
    He added:
Leave a copy at the Red Ox
.
I must find Carla at once.
    He searched his mind for the date. Tomorrow was the feast of Saint Bartholomew the Apostle. He signed his name and dated the message
p.m. Saturday
23 rd
August
1572. He flapped the paper to dry the ink. He looked at Grégoire, who observed the proceedings with wide eyes, an open mouth and a runny nose.
    ‘The taverns,’ said Tannhauser. ‘We will search the student taverns.’
    Tannhauser folded the paper twice and wrote ‘LUDOVICI’ and ‘MATTIAS’ on the back. The letters that identified the pigeonholes were painted on wooden tags nailed above the slots. He prised the ‘L’ tag free and used it to pin the message to the box where its title could be read from beyond the counter. He returned to the porter and kicked him in the ribs.
    ‘Get up.’
    Despite his apparent decrepitude, the porter scrambled to his feet with an agility a younger man might have envied. Indeed, denuded of the wig, and with his face taut with rage, the porter might have passed for fifty rather than seventy. His scalp was a mass of scabby, peeling lesions. Tannhauser stepped back in case they were catching. He retrieved his rifle and nodded at the pigeonholes.
    ‘Make sure my message reaches Master Ludovici.’
    Out in the street, the sun was hotter, the crowds denser, the stench more odious than before. Tannhauser scraped his fingernails through his beard. Sweat crawled down his flanks. His eyes felt gritty. He wanted a bath, if such existed in Paris. He wanted his horse back, so he might ride above the slime congealing on his boots. Grégoire pointed at a long row of clamourous, overcrowded pigsties.
    ‘The student taverns.’
     
    The first three alehouses roared with drink and argumentation but proved barren in respect of his search. In each he had the landlord bellow Orlandu’s name above the din, but no one responded. When this tactic failed in the fourth, the Red Ox, Tannhauser took a table near the door. He ordered wine, a cold goose pie and two roasted pullets. The conversation of the surrounding clientele had an undertow of dread. Some urgent news had broken, it seemed. Tannhauser tried to catch the gist but he was tired, and his ear was poorly attuned to the local accents.
    He heard mention of the Queen, Catherine de Medici; and of her son, King Charles; and of his brother, Henri, Duc d’Anjou; and of the Duc de Guise, the Catholic champion of Paris. More often than he liked, he heard the name of Gaspard Coligny, the Huguenot demagogue and Grand Admiral of France. The man had starved Paris in ’67; his German mercenaries had despoiled much of the country; and now, so rumour had it, he hungered for conflict with Spain in the Netherlands. The same cast of imbeciles and villains had thrice plunged France into the horrors of civil war.
    Tannhauser had abandoned all involvement and even interest in political matters, for there was nothing he could do to alter their course. The high and the mighty remained spellbound by their own self-importance; their basest emotions turned history’s wheels. The rulers of France were no more corrupt and incompetent than those who governed anywhere else, but because he had come to love the country, their crimes caused him a deeper despair. He brightened as the drink and the pie arrived.
    The serving girl was unsure as to whether Grégoire was to be included in the meal. When Tannhauser indicated that he was, the boy was more surprised than she. Grégoire appeared not to have eaten so well since the milk from his mother’s breast, if he had ever known that pleasure. Tannhauser had changed the boy’s destiny on a whim. As a child his own life had changed on the impulse of a stranger. He might have picked someone better