1635: The Papal Stakes

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

John O’Neill, still half-blind with rage and distrust, had taken a step closer to the sassenach — who turned away, and leveled his up-time pistol at the oncoming Spanish. Two ear-splitting snaps-reports, but so unlike the hoarse, throaty roars of muzzle-loaders-dropped the first Spaniard who came through the door, a middle-aged man with a sergeant’s sash. The three with him brought up their own pieces, but the wide-barreled carbines of Lefferts and one of his men were already trained on the doorway. Their discharge was thunderous, painful within the close, walled space-and John checked to be sure that the weapons had not, in fact, exploded. But the effects were clear enough: the cuirass of the first Spanish soldier was riddled by holes, and, as he went backward, a wide spray of blood preceded his fall. One of the two behind him must have picked up a ball, as well; his left arm buckling as the impact pulled him in that direction, the Spaniard’s own piece discharged, sending a lead ball spalling off the antechamber floor, through a window and whining out into the arboretum. The discharge of the second up-time weapon-another of these slim yet monstrously powerful musketoons-followed an eye blink behind the first. It made a red ruin of the wounded soldier’s head and arms, and must have clipped the third in the leg; he dropped with a moan. That sound was cut short by a single shot from the woman-the woman? — with Lefferts’ band; the Spaniard crumpled backward.

John knew he should act, should do something productive, but for the moment, all he could do was think: A woman? John had heard the rumors, but refused to believe them. A woman? Traveling with soldiers-no, raiders-in the field? How did they all-?

Noise. It came from just beyond the side-door of the rectory, the one that led out into the small garden that was tucked into a small niche between buildings of the annex. The Spanish would have had to climb a wall to get there this quickly, but “Lefferts, Owen-here!” John was moving as he snapped the order, leaping to the side of the door, drawing his sword in the same motion.

The door burst open even as he landed beside it. He saw a pistol in his face, snapped his wrist to convert his sword’s unsheathing into an abbreviated back-handed cut. Blood sprayed into his face at the same moment that thunder and powder-grit exploded against his reflex-shut eyes, and sent a bolt of searing lightning across the top of his right ear.

Which no longer worked.

He noticed.

As he fell.

Backward.

And landed with a crash that he felt rather than heard, but it jarred him out of his daze.

Just in time to gasp as someone fell on top of him. Weapons were discharging above and around John as he pushed the person-well, the body-off of him. Judging from its half-severed hand, it was the corpse of the Spaniard-the captain of the guard, from the look of his blood-spattered gear-who had almost shot him in the face. But John’s sword slice had not been what had killed the hidalgo: three perfectly round holes in his cuirass were clearly the cause of death. And the only person near enough to have done the shooting was the woman, who was already stepping sideways to get a better angle out into the garden. Staggering forward one step, John surveyed the situation out there, saw a knot of swordsmen entangled just beyond the door, and smiled.

At last: the perfectly uncomplicated and spine-tingling rush of combat. Oh, how I’ve missed it he thought, as he headed for the melee with great, bounding strides…

At least that bigoted Irish bastard isn’t dead; there would’ve been hell to pay for that, reflected Thomas as he swapped magazines and took stock of the situation.

In addition to the three Spaniards he and Sherrilyn had gunned down, four more had been killed coming in from the kitchen and pantry area, and three more by the rectory’s garden door where-for some idiotic reason-the earl and a few of his bog-hoppers had gone outdoors to have a little sword fight. But Matija and Sherrilyn were moving in that direction, too, and they’d be sure to make a quick end of that little machismo-induced melee. Of greater concern was the doorway that led from the rectory anteroom into the short corridor leading to the apse of the church. That was where most of the on-duty guards would no doubt fall-back, make a plan…

Which would involve a flanking maneuver. Probably making use of the same arboretum through which North had entered, since it was easily accessed from the front of the church. But that flanking move would be a feint only. The widest, yet shortest approach route was through the anteroom corridor linking to the apse “Harry-”

“Yeah, I know. You take Felix and George, as well as any Irish that aren’t needed in the rectory, and cover the corridor to the church. Donald, Gerd, and I will set up a cross fire in the arboretum; they’ll be coming that way, too.”

Thomas waved to George. “You heard Harry; on me, Sutherland. And you-” he turned to a particularly well-groomed Irishman who had just recovered his pepperbox revolver “-how are you with a sword?”

“I’m better with a scalpel.”

Thomas stared, then realized, judging from the easy, elegant diction, that this “bog-hopper” was telling the truth. “Then get in the rear, Doctor, and order your two mates here to cover this door. Swords and pistols, and stand to the side until I say; they’ll come hard, when they do. George, Felix, either side of the door. Shotguns out, pistols ready. Doctor, do be good enough to watch the door leading back into the main annex. If you detect any-”

Shotguns started firing rapidly out in the arboretum; the fast-paced BOOM-thra-thunk-BOOM-thra-thrunk sequence was consistent with a rapid pumping of double-aught rounds downrange.

Thomas edged close to the apse-hallway door, cheated it open a sliver And saw the double-doors at the apse-end of the corridor swing wide, the Spanish bursting through them three abreast, swordsmen in the lead, musketeers behind.

He let them come half the twenty feet. Then he pulled open the antechamber door. Too far into their charge and too far away from cover to settle in for a gun battle, the Spanish came harder, the musketeers shouting for clearance, hoping to get a shot.

Thomas leveled his pistol and said, “Now!” He aimed at the point man, but did not fire. Felix and George leaned around the door jamb and started pumping shotgun rounds into the Spanish at a range of eight feet.

The first rank went down as a wave of tattered and bloody corpses, revealing the second rank, one or two of whom had taken minor wounds from the. 33 caliber balls that that slipped between the bodies in front of them. At their center-and now clearly revealed for Thomas-was the target he expected to find: the career NCO, a little salt mixed into the pepper of his campaigner’s beard. That career soldier had realized any spot in the first rank was suicide, but had also known he had to be present to press home the charge. He had to get in among the enemy with both a sword and tactical acumen that had been honed by decades of experience. He, the seasoned Spanish sergeant, was arguably the most potent weapon of the epoch, having been forged along a bloody trail that stretched from Madrid to Maastricht to Macau and back again.

Thomas, with an easy easy but firm grip on the nine-millimeter, let the tip of the bead rise up into the v-notch of the rear sight, saw the sternum line of the sergeant’s cuirass aligned there as well, and squeezed the trigger. And again, for good measure.

The sergeant went down.

Sic transit gloria mundi est, reflected Thomas.

As the next rank closed in, Thomas stepped back and the Irish jumped up, pepperboxes thundering. Still giving ground, Thomas started targeting the musketeers between the heads and shoulders of the Wild Geese.

The Irish-credit to be given where credit was due-seemed to intuit the overall strategy. After littering the doorway with Spaniards, they too backed up to the let the last of them rush into the antechamber.

Felix and George’s reloaded shotguns thundered into that press from either side. The space was suddenly choked with falling bodies, helmets, weapons, and blood. A nuisance, really, Thomas conceded as he found an opening and fired two quick rounds at one of the musketeers hanging back at the church doors — Who fell. Two of his comrades ducked behind the walls of the apse; an equal number snapped off return shots. One musket ball hit the doorjamb, another hit one of the last Spaniards still standing.

“Cover! Back!” ordered Thomas, obeying his own command.

George, Felix, and the Irish tucked back out of sight in the antechamber, although not before one of them took a ball in the upper leg, and another was clipped near along his left calf.

Harry’s voice came from behind. “Thomas, hold them here.”

He turned and nodded at the American who was leaning in through the arboretum doorway. Harry returned the nod, motioned for Ohde to stay in a covering position and led Gerd forward at a crouched sprint, sticking close to the side of the church and making for its entrance. A reciprocal flanking action: just as Thomas would have done himself.

“Now what?” asked the Irish surgeon from where he was staunching the one Irishman’s thigh-wound.

“Now, we play peek-a-boo with the musketeers.” Thomas leaned out, took a shot at nothing. Ducked back. Then he edged the rim of his helmet out beyond the doorjamb.

Two musket blasts responded, one of which sent a ball whining into the rectory itself, eliciting a mighty, if indistinct, oath from one of the Irish who had evidently finished amusing themselves playing at swords in the garden.

Thomas studied the litter of Spanish equipment at his feet, saw an undischarged musket, toed it to one of the Irish pistoleers in the antechamber. “Shoot it,” he said.

“At what?” the Irishman asked, puzzled.

“At the Spaniards in the apse.”

He took a quick squint around the corner. “Can’t see ’em.”

“You don’t have to. Just shoot in their general direction. Keep them busy.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see. Well, more like ‘you’ll hear.’ Now be a good fellow and shoot at nothing, please.”

The Irishman shrugged, sensibly did not expose more than the barrel and his right eye, fired, and hit the lintel of the door into the apse.

“See,” asked Thomas, “now how hard was that?”

“Harder to understand than do-sir,” came the answer. “What the bollocks good is it to-?”

The sudden multiple shotgun discharges within the church sounded like a short, intense bombardment by light artillery. Wonderful acoustics in these Italian churches, reflected Thomas, as he stepped out into the line of fire. He considered whether or not it would be prudent to swap magazines again. He became aware of someone staring at him: the Irishman with the discharged Spanish musket.

“So all we were doing-”

“-was keeping the musketeers in the apse focused on us, yes. And making sure there was plenty of noise covering the approach of our counterflankers. The Spanish had no way of knowing that all their own flankers had been cut down so quickly by Harry in the arboretum. So we just had to keep them from glancing back at what they thought was their secure flank-the front door of the church-long enough for Harry to make his counterflanking strike there. Now, relieve the doctor at the annex door; he has two wounded men to tend to.” North headed back toward the rectory.

John managed to stand up a little straighter when the sassenach came back into the rectory. Father Wadding had grown very quiet, staring round at the bodies littering his sanctum sanctorum. Owen approached, asked, “Father, I’m sorry to have to ask, but is this all of them?”

“What do you mean?”

Owen bit his lip before continuing. “Is this the full lot of the guards? Are there any more?”

Father Luke stood suddenly, and John saw that the infamous Wadding ire had ignited. His dark eyes seemed to stab into Owen. “Why do you want to know, Owen Roe? Haven’t you slaked your thirst for blood just yet?”

Owen looked away. He was afraid that if Wadding saw the look in his eyes the priest would know that he’d already given the order to have any surviving enemy soldiers slain. He’d disliked giving that order, but hadn’t seen any choice. They simply couldn’t afford to leave any eyewitnesses behind.

It was a moot point, in any event. From their actions, it was obvious that Lefferts had given his own people the same order. Father, “he said, quietly, “we didn’t want this to happen. But it has. And now we must leave. But we can’t know how to do that most safely until we know if there are any guards left.”

“Ah, so you need to know how many you have yet to hunt down? Well, there might be some hiding under the altar. It’d be a fine place for the crowning glory-or should that be gory? — of his unholy bloodbath. This is a church, blast you, a church! It is sacred, a sanctuary for all who come within its walls. And you have-”

The up-timer woman spoke. “Father Wadding. You are certainly right. And I think we should hear everything you have to say. But if there are any guards left, they could be running for help. From what we’ve seen of this area, the Spanish have a lot of troops billeted just north of here, in the Villa Ludovisi. If that’s right, they will have heard the shooting and will come to investigate, sooner or later. I’m betting on sooner. But if someone runs from here to tell them what happened, their response time will become ‘right now.’ So please, for the sake of our survival, let me put this to you: other than the ones you see here in the rectory, we’ve accounted for about thirty more guards. Is that the full complement?”

Wadding’s shoulders slumped. “I believe so. Most of them, for a certainty-but I do not keep close track of their numbers. And there are always some coming and going, delivering messages, taking a day or two of leave, or taking an hour or two to pursue other-pleasures.”

Harry entered, hearing the end of the report. “I think some soldiers and one or two cooks may have run off right at the start of the fight, but they won’t be able to report anything specific that would identify us. I kept Paul stationed out back, watching for leakers who did see something and who might head toward the Ludovisi place. He’s still there, and waved all clear. As long as we get out of here quickly, we should be all right.”

John remembered to wipe his sword-on a Spaniard-before sheathing it.

“You would so defile the dead, you young scut?”

John stared at Wadding, and remembered the resentment he’d often felt for the man before. “I’m thinking I’d rather you go back to calling me ‘Don John,’ from here on in, Father. And I’m not in the mood for one of your pious lectures. Where are the domestics, and the other clergy?”

Wadding had drawn up to his full height. “We only had two servants working here, now. And only one was in today. Who no doubt had the good sense to flee when the firing started. And no, he will not go to the Ludovisi Villa; he lost half his family to the Spanish. He will want-need-to avoid questioning upon the events of this day.

“I sent the students and the other priests to Gondolpho, where the Pontifical Irish College has a house for religious retreats. Only Father Hickey remains here with me.”

“Who is, I think, approaching,” reported Connal, from the antechamber.

Sure enough, Anthony Hickey hobbled into the rectory. Although only two years older than Wadding, the years did not rest lightly upon the priest. Arthritis had already struck permanent, gnarling blows against Hickey’s knees and hands, and his lank white hair fit all too well with his much-lined face.

But John hardly saw all that. This was Father Anthony, the priest who had always been more sympathetic than strict, more paternal than profound. Yes, he was an excellent scholar, but he had been better still as a surrogate uncle to the young heir of the great and impossibly detached Hugh O’Neill. A father who had never had time for or interest in this son, who some had snickered was “Johnnie-come-lately…and — slowly.” A father who, in the eight years he lived in Rome, never once summoned the boy to his home, and hardly ever wrote him a letter from the time that he was deposited with Archduchess Isabella at age seven.

John felt his command persona fall away, and did not care in the least that it had: “Father Anthony,” he said. And opened his arms.

The frail priest doddered toward him. But somehow, when he got there, despite John’s slightly greater height and much greater mass, it seemed that it was Father Anthony who enveloped the earl in a great, fond hug, rather than the other way around. After a few moments, John realized that the room had become very still. “Father Anthony,” he repeated; his eyes stung a bit.

“Ah, Johnnie,” breathed the priest. “You’ve not changed.” He looked around at the bodies for the first time. “What a hash,” he breathed. “Johnnie, did you have to?”

John hung his head. “It was them or us, Father. Not what we wanted. We thought to nick the two of you out of here with a piece of paper and a wink, as it were. But-” He looked at Lefferts, who looked away. “-but things didn’t work out that way. No evil intended by anyone, Father, but it happened nonetheless.”

“Man always runs afoul of man’s plans.” The priest nodded, looked at the group, smiled at Owen, with whom he had a passing acquaintance, and the other Wild Geese in the room. But the smile dropped away when his eyes found the Wrecking Crew, first resting upon Harry, then Sherrilyn, then Thomas, then George, and then back to Harry. “Johnnie, who are these-persons?”

“Eh-chance met fellow-travelers, Father.”

“Travelers? Why ‘travelers’?”

“Because we’re leaving now, Father. All of us. You too.”

“With them?”

“With all our friends,” John amended, earning a small smile from Harry.

Anthony looked at the Wrecking Crew yet again, and, alarmed, looked back at his old pupil and unofficial charge. “They’re friends, are they? So are you consorting with the Devil, now, Johnnie?”

John sighed. “I just may be, Father; I just may be.”