snow outside Moscovy, but nothing was as chilling as that short, desperate run in Paris.] I glimpsed the creaking sign of a tavern with two red apples. I screamed again.
Suddenly the door beneath the sign opened, a hand stretched out and pulled me in. I heard the crash of a body against the door, and angry snarling. Gasping for breath I looked round, noticing the low black beams, tawdry tables and thick, fat tallow candles, their rancid smell cloying my frozen nose and face. A stocky, red-faced fellow with hairy warts round his mouth grinned a gap-toothed smile, pulled open a shutter and let fly with a huge arbalest. I heard curses, the screaming yelps of the animals, then I fainted.
When I revived, Wart-Face (who introduced himself as Jean Capote) and his companion Claude Broussac, rat-faced with a pointed nose, greasy hair and the cheekiest eyes I have seen this side of Hell, were bending over me, forcing a cup of scalding posset between my lips. They introduced themselves as self-confessed leaders of the Maillotins, the French word for 'clubs', a secret society of the Parisian poor who attacked the rich and earned their name from the huge cudgels they carried. Brother Joachim, like many of the Franciscans, must have been one of these.
'You're not going to die,' Broussac said, his eyes dancing with mischief. 'We thought we'd denied the wolves a good meal. If we hadn't, we'd have tossed you back and perhaps saved some other unfortunate!'
I struggled up to show I wasn't wolf meat. Capote brought me a deep-bowled cup of heavy claret, heated it with a burning poker, and a dish of scalding meat, heavily spiced. I later learnt it was cat. They asked me a few questions and withdrew to grunt amongst themselves, then came back and welcomed me as one of them. God knows why they saved me. When I asked, they just laughed.
'We don't like wolves,' Broussac sneered, 'whether they be fouror two-legged. You're not French, are you?' he added.
'I'm English,' I replied. 'But I starve like any Frenchman!'
They laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. If I had lied, I'm sure they would have cut my throat. I swear this now [never mind the chaplain who is sitting there sneering at me], I saw more of Christ's love amongst the Maillotins than anywhere else on this earth. Their organisation was loose knit but they accepted anyone who swore the oath of secrecy and agreed to share things in common, which I promptly did. What we owned we stole and filched, not from the poor but the merchants, the lawyers, the fat and the rich. What we didn't eat ourselves, we shared; the most needy receiving the most, then a descending scale for everybody else.
I also began to plot my departure from Paris. Benjamin, I reasoned, must either have died of an illness or been killed. Now I would need silver to reach the coast and get across the Narrow Seas. Broussac once asked what I was doing in Paris, so I told him. He was fascinated by Selkirk's murder.
'There is a secret society,' he murmured, 'Englishmen who fled after your Richard III was killed at Bosworth. They have an emblem.' He screwed up his face so it seemed to hide behind his huge nose. Their emblem is an animal, a leopard? No, no, a white boar. Les Blancs Sangliers!'
At the time I didn't give a damn. In the winter of 1518 all I cared about was surviving and life was hard in Paris. Yuletide and Twelfth Night passed with only the occasional carols in church, for no one dared to go out at night. Mind you, every cloud had a silver lining. The brothels were free, the ladies of the night well rested and more than prepared to accept sustenance, a loaf or a jug of wine, instead of silver. I suppose I was happy enough. I never planned. (I always follow the Scriptures: 'Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.') I just wish I had practised what I preached! I was full to the gills of roasted cat, which is one of the reasons I can't stand the animals now. Whenever I see one I remember the 'rancid smell of Broussac's stew pot and the gall rises in my throat.
[The silly chaplain is shaking his noddle.
'I would not eat cat,' he murmurs.
Yes, the little sod would. Believe me, when you are hungry, really hungry, so that your stomach clings to your backbone, nothing is more tasty than a succulent rat or a well-roasted leg of cat!]
I stayed with the Maillotins until spring came. The river thawed and barges of food began to reach the capital. The city provost and his marshals became more organised, clamping down more ruthlessly on the legion of thieves which flourished in the slums around the Rue Saint Antoine. Broussac and Capote refused to read the signs and so made their most dreadful mistake. One night, early in February 1518, the three of us were in a tavern called the Chariot, a cosy little ale house which stands on the corner of the Rue des Mineurs near the church of Saint Sulpice. We had eaten and drunk well, our gallows faces flushed with wine, our stupid mouths bawling out some raucous song and planning our next escapade.
Now Broussac had an enemy – a Master Francois Ferrebourg, a priest, bachelor of arts, and pontifical notary. He occupied a house at the Sign of the Keg, a little further down the street opposite the convent church of the Order of Saint Cecily. Broussac, on our way home, stopped to jeer in at the lighted windows of Master Ferrebourg's office. Oh, God, I remember the scene well: the black street with its overhanging eaves and gables, the broad splash of light pouring across the cobbles from Ferrebourg's open window. Inside, his clerks sat toiling into the night over some urgent piece of business and Broussac, half-tipsy, taunted them, making rude gestures and spitting through the window. Now, we should have left it at that, but we were too drunk to run, whilst the clerks were sober and quick-witted. They left their writing desks and poured into the streets, led by Master Ferrebourg himself. The notary gave Broussac a vigorous shove which sent my companion sprawling into the open sewer. He picked himself up, roaring with rage, and, before I could stop him, whipped out his dagger and gave Master Ferrebourg a nasty gash across his chest whilst lifting the purse from his belt.
'Run, Shallot!' he screamed.
I was too drunk and, as Broussac disappeared into the darkness, Capote and myself were seized and held until the night watch arrived. Our thumbs were tied together and, in a clatter of arms and a tramp of archers, we were hustled into the dark archways of the Chatelet prison and thrown into a deep dungeon beneath the tower.
We were tried before the Provost of Paris the next morning. Capote, still drunk, farted and belched when the sentence was read out. I tried to reason with them but, in doing so, confessed I was English. My fate was sealed. We were condemned as two of the most troublesome blackguards within the liberties of Paris; rioters, burglars and assassins, hand in glove with some of the most desperate characters of the underworld. We were sentenced to hang the next morning at the gallows of Montfaucon. I tried to plead and argue but was only beaten for my pains and thrown down the steps back into my cell; the dungeon door, grating shut, was locked securely behind us.
Capote immediately fell asleep on the straw. I just sat staring into the darkness, hugging my knees. All I could see was Death, beckoning and grinning before me. In the thick, musty air of the dungeon I felt a creeping graveyard chill. Who would help me this time? The Parisians would scarcely spare a second thought for an Englishman and be only too pleased to see me twitch and shake at the end of a rope. I thought of Benjamin and Wolsey and cursed them. Couldn't they have done something? Made enquiries? Searched me out?
['Put not your trust in princes, Shallot!' my chaplain often quips. I rap the little hypocrite across the knuckles and tell him to keep writing.]
I spent the night before my intended execution listening to Capote's raucous songs. The fellow said he didn't give a fig about life so why should he fear death? He was still brazening it out the next morning when the Provost and his bodyguard of twelve mounted Serjeants and ten archers came to collect us. We were roped, hustled up the steps of the dungeon and into the freezing courtyard. The scarlet execution cart was waiting for us, the skulls of hanged men decorating each side. The Provost barked an order and the red-hooded executioner turned, wished us good morning, flicked his whip and urged the cart through the gates of the prison and on to the winding track down to Montfaucon.
We made a brief stop at the Convent of Les Filles de Dieu near the port of St Severin. Here the good sisters comforted us on our last journey with a manchet of bread and a cup of wine.
I chewed the bread and took the wine in one long gulp to control my trembling for I did not wish to disgrace myself. Capote was as raucous as ever, eyeing the sisters, cracking jokes with the executioner, telling the good prioress to have a second cup ready for the journey back. The provost then ordered us forward, the Serjeants going ahead, spurring a lane through the mob gathering to watch us die. I glimpsed Broussac, one hand down the bodice of some whore, the other holding a wine cup. He grinned and toasted me silently. I glared back at the bastard. If he
