1635: The Papal Stakes

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Harry Lefferts leaned away from the Remington 700’s scope and sighed, “I love it when a plan comes together.” His two lefferti assistants-hiding behind the low wall of the makeshift belvedere that was perched atop the one three-story building that bordered the Jewish Ghetto-nodded, fierce grins on their faces. Whether or not they understood the full details of the plan was really beside the point; they were ardent groupies and were pumped up, thrilled to be chosen as tactical runners for their idol.

One of them was Giovanna Marcoli’s brother Fabrizio. Just beyond them, a gangly youth was scanning a tight cluster of rooftops about one-hundred-twenty yards away. “What are you seeing, Benito?”

“Little” Ben, whose growth rate put kudzu to shame, shrugged his narrow, stripling shoulders. “The usual,” he answered, moving the binoculars up higher, so they rested well above the still-healing gash on his cheek.

“Any movement on the roof?”

“None. Never is.”

“Good. Keep an eye on it.”

“Don’t I always?” Benito had never been awed by Harry.

Which only increased Harry’s fondness for Benito. The kid was a character, a real original, but, because he was only fourteen, others hadn’t noticed that just yet. It was a situation that Harry himself had experienced in adolescence and could recall with great clarity. He swung the Remington’s scope down to the Palazzo Giove’s main entrance and smiled to see the growing crowd of protesters, brandishing handles of every kind. The handles had been harvested from discarded tools, old doors, and shattered pots. The crowd was waving them in time to a chant that, at this range, Harry could not make out. But knowing Juliet, Harry was sure that it was saucy, inspired, and cutting.

He smiled to see her-prominent at the center of the mob-shaking her own pitcher handle at the tall, sealed doors, evidently lost in her role. But she was the consummate performer, able to give herself over fully to her persona of the moment, and yet maintain some part of her mind at a distance, observing, watching, measuring both the effect upon the audience, and the evolving situation around her.

She’d set the current events in motion six hours ago. In the blistering heat of the late mid-day sun, Juliet had waited patiently in the shadows with her water jug, as she had for three days. Three uneventful days when the palazzos of the insula Mattei had not drawn water, at least not from this fountain, which was located just across the street from the Palazzo Giacomo, and within twenty yards of where Frank and Giovanna were held captive.

But on this day, at last, two women had emerged from the tall doors of the main palazzo and moved north to the fountain, under the constant and proximal guard of two Spaniards.

Just as the two women started filling their yoke-linked buckets, Juliet had burst excitedly from her hiding place, quickly summoning other women to her with a tale of woe. Juliet had considered and discarded a number of tear-jerking narrative variants: she desperately needed water to soothe a child who had just burned herself at the hearth; to help a young cousin going into labor; to cleanse the wound of a young brother convalescing from wounds suffered during the Spanish attack. But with the increase in heat, the multiplication of mosquitoes, and the proximity of the river and the Ghetto, she had selected a story sure to generate maximum sympathy by playing on the fears of everyone else in the neighborhood: she needed water to combat the Roman fever of her elderly father.

Juliet had chosen her psyops story well; half a dozen other women were close behind her by the time she reached the fountain. Where she was waved off by the Spaniards. Hands on hips, red in the face, she expostulated, pleaded, screamed, gesticulated. The Spaniards ignored her. Indignant, but wary behind her apparent excess of passion, she defied them and stuck her jug into the fountain. In doing so, she came quite close to the insula Mattei’s designated water-bearers, who were, of course, prohibited all contact with the outside world.

The closest Spaniard pushed her back, just missing her sizable bosom in so doing. But that didn’t stop Juliet from claiming a sexual violation of her person, in addition to decrying the callous barbarity of the Spanish invaders. And, determined creature that she was, she surged her bulk back to the fountain, determined to fill her jug with water.

The other Spaniard looked lazily at her for a moment: Harry, watching through binoculars, had held his breath. He knew that look: annoyance coupled with utter disregard for human life. Anything could happen. The Spaniard pulled his sword-a short, straight blade not too different from a basket-hilted gladius-and swung it.

Juliet, mouth open, had frozen in surprise, fear, caution-Harry couldn’t tell which-and watched as the flat of the blade smashed her jug to pieces. Leaving her holding the handle.

That was when Harry witnessed Juliet’s genius at work, the moment of inspiration writ large across her broad face as she stared down at the fragment of jug which she was still grasping. With a shriek like a wounded Fury, she thrust the handle aloft, and began denouncing the Spanish brutes who were condemning her father to death because they would not share a fountain, not even for the five seconds it took to fill the jug they had destroyed. Thereby further ensuring the death of her father, because how could she now carry enough water?

What followed was a particularly Roman scene: despite the rapid propagation and intensification of her lament for a father dying due to the inhuman cruelty of the Spaniards, not one person interrupted Juliet’s agonized tirade to determine the location of the stricken parent, or departed to find other containers for use as soon as the Spanish withdrew. Instead, the emotions and outrage swelled along with the crowd, burgeoning out of all proportion to the offense.

But that was Juliet’s genius, to have understood exactly what kind of offense would have enough common resonance with the downtrodden masses to whip them up into the near-rebellious frenzy she had generated by three o’clock. At which point, the crowd had been ready to march on the Palazzo Mattei. But Juliet had redirected that fury, and marshaled what were now very much her forces, crafting a far more organized-and usefully timed-riot in front of the haughty gates of Palazzo Giove Mattei.

Which was now under way. The motif of the broken handle had, as Juliet had known it would, struck a chord with the less-affluent workers who were predominant in the neighborhoods near the Tiber. Now, as dusk was approaching, the anger of the mob was building, the chants becoming more fierce.

Yes, Harry thought, I certainly do love it when a plan comes together. He looked down the scope again; there’d be ample light for at least another twenty minutes, by which time they’d be done with the job and heading back to the boats. He played the scope across the crowd; roofs occasionally obstructed his view, particularly of anything that might be situated in the immediate lee of any given building. But, thanks to the piazza surrounding the fountain, the arched doorway into the target building, the Palazzo Giacomo Mattei, was in clear view. And over that arch, he could see into the courtyard beyond.

There was a dim light in the windows of Frank’s rooms. The two-tiered loggia just beyond them, at the rear of the courtyard, was dark. A good sign: probably no guards there, as usual.

Harry cheated the scope up to the rooftop belvedere of the Palazzo Giove: one guy, staring over the lip down at the crowd in the street below. Nothing to worry about, but Harry would take him out first: an easy shot at only one hundred twenty-five yards.

He roved the scope across the interlocked roofs of the three palazzos of the squarish insula, checking for traps as he went. First the Giove, which dominated the southern and eastern halves of the compound; then the Giacomo on the west; and finally the Paganica on the northwest corner. Harry saw nothing new and no movement. As usual.

Satisfied, Harry turned to one of the lefferti. “Now, give the signal.”

The young fellow nodded and leaned out the rear of their own crude belvedere; he uncovered a bull’s eye lantern briefly. He resealed it, waited two seconds, uncovered it again. Repeated the process a third time and waited.

In the house across the street and just beyond the walls of the Ghetto, a light came on in the second story window closest to the now-unguarded gate known as the Porto Giuda.

Sherrilyn Maddox stayed well within the jagged hole in the roof of the gutted church that overlooked the Palazzo Paganica. She saw a light appear in the second story window of the Ghetto-hugging house that she had been watching for the last fifteen minutes. She turned to face the dark behind her. “We’re on,” she hissed at the rest of the Wrecking Crew, whom she could barely make out. “Push those ladders over the street and get them snug on the roof of the Palazzo Paganica. Felix, Paul, you’re the lightest, so you go over first and secure them in place. Then Gerd, you start on your way; you have a lot of roofs to scramble across.”

“Yes, but they are flat, so they are easy.”

Sherrilyn smiled. “If you say so. Let’s move.”

Owen Roe O’Neill tapped the earl of Tyrone on his thick, sturdy shoulder and pointed to the yellow glow in the signal window. “First light,” he muttered.

John nodded, and turned to his assault team: all the Wild Geese and a half dozen of the oldest lefferti. They had spent most of the day in this street-accessed storeroom, located just north of the fountain where Juliet had begun the Broken Handle Riot. “Weapons ready, lads. And stand to stretch your legs. Starting in five minutes, we’ll be running and fighting without rest until we’ve left Rome behind us.”

The knock on the door was not the dinner Frank had been expecting; it was Don Vincente Jose-Maria de Castro y Papas. In armor.

“Signor Stone.” His voice was very different from when they went on their now habitual garden walks. “It truly pains me to disturb you and your radiant wife at this late hour, but I am afraid I must intrude.”

“Vincente, what is-?”

Giovanna must have heard something he had missed. “Frank, my love, do not ask questions; let him in. And come here, to me.”

Frank looked at Don Vincente, who would not look him in the eye. Standing aside, Frank asked, “What’s wrong? Is-?”

“All is well, Signor Stone. A mild disturbance in the street.”

“Sounds more like a riot, to me,” Giovanna offered from the doorway of their bedroom, her dark eyes lightless but tracking Vincente around the room as he inspected it for-for what?

“Is it? A riot, that is?” Frank asked.

“What? Yes, yes it seems so.”

“A shortage of food? A new round of executions?” Giovanna had folded her arms and stood planted in the space between the rooms. “A toddler trampled under the hoofs of Spanish horses?”

Don Vincente did not look at her directly as he retracted the wick of the room’s oil lamp, dimming the light. “A scuffle over drawing water from the fountain. A minor nuisance. It will pass quickly.”

“Yes, no need to worry about Italians, eh? An easily routed rabble.”

Now Don Vincente looked at her. “Signora, of this, be sure: I have never said, or thought, such a thing. Only a fool discounts the anger and resolve of patriots seeking to liberate their homeland.”

If that did not mollify Giovanna, it was at least so blunt an admission that it momentarily took the wind out of her sails.

Frank however, had a new topic of conversation he wanted to pursue. “So Don Vincente, I wonder if you could explain something.”

“Certainly, Signor Stone.”

“If the riot is just a minor nuisance that will pass quickly, why are you here?”

Vincente looked up at him and sighed. “Because those are my orders.”

In the hall just outside their suite, Frank heard movement: men in equipment, jostling lightly against each other. He looked in that direction; Sergeant Ezquerra was now standing in the doorway, hand on the hilt of his sword. That worthy shrugged when both he and Giovanna looked at him, and the accompanying smile was so brittle that Frank thought his face might break into a shower of terra-cotta pieces.

Frank turned back toward Vincente, pointed. “And he has the same orders? Along with the dozen or so others I can hear behind him?”

“Yes.”

“And just how many more of your men are waiting even farther beyond the hall outside my room?”

“That,” said Vincente, averting his eyes uncomfortably, “I cannot tell you.”

“You don’t know?”

“I am not allowed to say.”

Frank stared at him until Vincente met his eyes again. “It’s not just a riot, is it?”

Vincente looked sad. “Of course not.”

Harry watched as Sherrilyn and the others reached the roof of Palazzo Giacomo Mattei, just east of the room in which Frank and Giovanna were being held. As soon as they got in position, they crouched low, Matija shrugging off a haversack: Gerd’s demolition gear.

Harry swung his scope right, to the south and the east, and saw, at a considerably greater distance, Gerd’s spare outline, returning from his first assignment. He was moving spiderlike across the roofs, keeping to the shortest path that would bring him back to Sherrilyn’s vertical entry team. Behind him, a wisp of smoke was now visible: the diversionary fire he had started near the southeast corner of the insula, the point furthest away from the northwest corner occupied by the palazzos Paganica and Giacomo. Harry cheated the scope a little farther south to the rooftop belvedere on the Palazzo Giove: empty, now. Maybe one of the folks in the crowd had heaved a few rocks at the observer he had seen there earlier. At any rate, the coast was clear.

Harry turned toward the lefferto with the light and nodded. Once again, the young fellow commenced signaling with his bull’s eye lantern.

John O’Neill saw the second signal window illuminate on the second floor of the tall building beside the Porto Giuda. He pushed open the storeroom door, revealing the fountain that dominated the small square. He jerked his head toward the street and the arched entrance of the Palazzo Giacomo’s courtyard. “On me, at the trot,” he ordered, and then led the way, as he always did. But this time he went forth with his sword still in its scabbard; there was no need to make clear their intents until they reached the entrance, only fifteen yards away.

Frank, staring out the slightly open window himself, began assessing the scene in the courtyard more carefully, seeing if there were any hints to be gleaned as to what, other than the riot, might be going on nearby. Given the long, slanting shadows of dusk, it was almost impossible to see beyond the arches that dominated both levels of the two-tiered loggia that faced opposite the street entry.

Almost impossible. But now that he looked carefully, he could see faint silhouettes hidden behind the supporting pillars of the upper gallery’s arches. Silhouettes of large men. In helmets. With weapons. Then Frank noticed movement: a window’s louvered shutters rotated slightly, briefly revealing a dim light in the room behind it. And in the moment before that light was extinguished, Frank saw, quite distinctly, the barrel of a very long gun, set on a pedestal, aiming out into the darkness at a slight elevation. Holding his breath, Frank followed the muzzle’s invisible trajectory out over the top of the courtyard wall and then between nearby roofs, at which point it was impossible to determine its precise path. But there were only a few two-story buildings out in that direction, and only one that was three stories, topped by a shabby belvedere, at the edge of the Ghetto. Where he saw, faintly, a tiny twitch of movement: maybe a nodding head, backlit by the setting sun. Or maybe silhouetted by the flash of a mostly shaded lamp…

Before he could think the better of doing so, Frank turned toward Vincente; cold pierced the pit of his stomach even as his brow suddenly burned with panic and rage. “You bastard-!”

Sherrilyn scanned the insula’s roofs nervously; she wished the riot could be a little more-well, quiet. Eyes were not enough when trying to make a covert entry; you needed your ears as well. And the tides of raucous protest at the main gate was rendering her ears useless.

Gerd was almost done placing the entry charges so that they would-hopefully-send most of their force downward. The tests he had run weeks before had yielded limited success; hopefully, this time would be no worse than those. With any luck, it would be a bit better.

Gerd played out the fast-burning fuse as he low-scrambled back to where the rest of the Crew was waiting, behind a low roof-peak, just six yards from his crude demolition charge.

“Ready?” asked Sherrilyn, rubbing her knee.

“ Ja, we can start the fireworks,” smiled Gerd, who sat up a little higher to reinspect his handiwork, to make sure he hadn’t missed anything.

Owen pulled out his pepperbox revolver as almost a dozen more lefferti, led by Frank Stone’s friend Piero, emerged from a building on the opposite side of the fountain’s piazza and swung in behind the leading wedge of Wild Geese. From an adjoining wain-shed, another half dozen lefferti burst out onto the street, but they turned sharply to the right, sprinting southward toward the riot outside the massive gates of the Palazzo Giove.

Owen reached, and sidled up alongside, the much smaller double-doors that led into the courtyard of the Palazzo Giacomo and nodded to David Synnot. The Ulsterman, standing six foot two and heavy-thewed, was carrying a maul.

Since the guards, if they were highly motivated, might be looking out the vision port in the door, Synnot wasted no time. He planted his feet wide, reared back with the maul, and then swung it forward in a fast, overhand arc.

“Knock, knock,” John O’Neill snarled wickedly, just before its iron head landed.

Frank saw Vincente’s jaw tighten, and then his eyes shot towards the gateway into the courtyard, where a thundering crash sent the doors themselves flying into pieces. Without turning toward Ezquerra, the Spanish captain ordered: “Ready my gun.”

The splintering smash of Synnot’s maul even drowned out the ongoing protest for a moment. Along with John, Owen shouldered open the tattered remains of the doors. Into that gap rushed Turlough Eubanks and Gerald O’Sullivan, swords out in their right hands, pepperboxes in their left, cuirasses glimmering faintly in the last light of day.

The fight for the door was over as soon as it had begun. The two guards, disheveled and nursing the dregs of nonregulation libations, were cut down swiftly. John grinned, sped past Owen, and then waved in the lefferti, who were tasked to secure the ground floor level of the two-tiered loggia at the opposite end of the courtyard. So far, so good: it was all proving to be just as easy as Harry had foreseen…

Owen lagged a step. It was too easy, too clean. He scanned the two gate guards; oddly, neither affected the coiffure stylings popular among the Spanish. No beards either, but ill-shaven, and a bit thin; one had distinct hollows in his cheeks. And where was the inevitable detritus that collected around such a low-trouble watch post? There should have been a smattering of garbage, or the little conveniences that guards brought to their posts: stools, rain-capes, a deck of cards…

That was when Owen heard the gunfire start up on the roof, and it didn’t sound like one of the Wrecking Crew’s weapons.

Sherrilyn saw the flash near the base of the main palazzo’s rooftop belvedere a split second before she heard the sharp report-and before Gerd dropped forward like a bag of rocks. He slid a yard down the shallow slope of the roof, upsetting tiles as he went.

“Damnit, Gerd! Gerd!”

But even before Sherrilyn got to his side, she knew Gerd was dead; the bullet had hit him just left of the sternum, and the blood was welling up out of him like a slow spring.

“Bastards,” growled Sherrilyn, thumbing the safety off her rifle and popping a round at the site of the flash. “Follow my fire,” she shouted to the rest of the Crew, “and suppress.”

As another bullet whined overhead, and the Crew’s shotguns roared in response, Sherrilyn Maddox lit the fuse of Gerd’s demolition charge. Then she scrambled, low and fast, to rejoin the Crew, hoping against hope that the second shot from the belvedere meant there were only two shooters concealed there.

Because if there were more, she might be taking her final breaths and last steps.

Frank looked down into the courtyard; all those men pouring through the shattered gate were coming to rescue him. Whoever they were. And they were going to get slaughtered by the well-prepared Spanish. Slaughtered. But what could he do-?

Frank snatched the oil lamp off the table with his right hand, yanked open the shutters with his left, and threw.

The lamp traced a guttering arc that carried it neatly over the low wall of the arcaded upper gallery; it shattered just to the right of the window with the open louvers.