1635: The Papal Stakes

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

As the dirigible came within thirty feet of the water, the surface breezes started playing with its trim. Virgilio, peering out over the front of the gondola, gauged the range, the rate of descent, and the distance to the water itself. He gave a thumb’s-up.

Standing at the taffrail, Miro returned the sign, turned and announced, “Prepare to board the airship.”

Standing alongside the Atropos’ mizzen mast-its yard lowered to the deck to provide clear space abaft-Harry Lefferts moved forward to the boarding lines and the primitive bosun’s chair they had rigged on them. Although the only gear he was wearing was his combat load and simple, black clothes, the lines still sagged significantly when he put his weight into the chair, which was also part climbing harness. Virgilio responded by juicing the airship’s burner a little bit more.

That tiny increase in lift minimized the slack in the line, and Harry drew himself arm-over-arm to the dirigible, now thirty feet astern of the Atropos and only twenty feet above the gentle, lightless swells of the Mediterranean.

The rest of the team went up similarly: Sean Connal, then Turlough Eubank, then one of Thomas North’s Hibernians-the only one that had been left behind with the boats.

Miro watched the chair come down for him. He glanced around the deck; Aurelio was beside him, the same worried look on his face that he had been wearing since they left the Illa dels Conill.

“Don Estuban, did you have to board the airship in such a-a complicated fashion?”

Miro smiled. Aurelio had tactfully used the word “complicated” but had really meant “hazardous.” “Yes,” he assured the Piombinese captain, “we had to do it this way. Inflating the balloon fully at sea is not easily or quickly done at night, so it was safer and faster to have it minimally inflated while we were still moored near land. But then, while we towed her, we had to keep as much weight-meaning us-out of the gondola to save fuel.”

Aurelio looked at the airship with trepidation. “If you say so, Don Estuban.”

Miro smiled at him as he belted himself into the bosun’s chair. “I will see you at the Dragon before dawn.”

“I will not be late, Don Estuban, if I have to row the Atropos there myself.”

“Your dedication is worthy of legend, Aurelio.”

“Dedication? Fah! I just want to be running well ahead of those Spanish bastards.” He waved as the bosun’s chair started up, drawn by hands already in the gondola.

Miro felt himself ascend. He looked down at the lights of the other ships in the tiny flotilla, and then up at the skies overhead: scattered bits of star-specked black peeked through gaps in the light clouds. It was a good night for a raid, although not a perfect night.

Either way, it would have to do.

The fellow who, until today, captained Miguel Tarongi’s shipments out to Cala Pi, appeared in the doorway of the storm-savaged windmill that had been abandoned almost a year earlier. “It is time,” he said.

Thomas North rose up out of the shadows and nodded for one of his Hibernians to check the surrounding area before they deployed. The Englishman trusted the xueta, but also trusted that fate would play a trick on his unit at some point during this operation: that was what happened when plans came into contact with reality. “Men,” he said, “it’s been a privilege working with you in preparation for this rescue operation, and I have the utmost confidence in you-mostly, because I prepared you myself.”

A few grins rose up. The Hibernian came back in, nodded at North.

“Very well; our path out of Cala Pedrera is clear. We will travel in double column up the narrow valley that skirts the south slopes of the Puig de Sa Mesquida, the hill upon which Bellver is built. The ground near the coast is level, but starts rising after two hundred yards. That is also the end of any appreciable habitation; the next closest community is a hamlet of scattered farm cottages and goat-herders’ huts called Bona Nova, less than a mile west of the Castell itself.

“If it becomes necessary to withdraw, and you are not in touch with command elements, you are to retrace your path here, and follow on down to the shore, where you’ll find the black llaut that brought us over yesterday. That boat has a running crew waiting on board. Any questions? Very well. Mr. Ohde, if you would officer the men from the front, I will shepherd from the rear until we reach waypoint one.”

Donald Ohde stood, moved to the door and waited for the fourteen other men to form in a column and hunch down. “Remember now; complete silence. We follow our guide precisely. No wandering off. The path has been checked and is clear-or was, thirty minutes ago. You do not engage any chance-met enemy until you are told to do so. Besides, we shouldn’t see any Spanish before reaching our first waypoint-unless you consider occasional wayward goats to be subjects of Philip’s. Now, double-check: gear secured with wrapping to muffle sound? All reflective surfaces dulled? Good. Follow me.” Donald Ohde drifted out into the darkness.

North watched them go: three Wild Geese, two of the Wrecking Crew (besides Ohde), and nine of his own Hibernians. Two officers, fourteen men. Against a fortress as renowned and redoubtable as Bellver. Thomas smiled. The poor Spanish bastards will never know what hit them.

He followed the last man out.

The Catalan corporal sighed wearily as the two donkey carts struggled up to the gatehouse of the Castell de Bellver, having ascended the track that followed the slopes of the rocky spur upon which the fortification was built. The corporal squinted into the almost moonless dark and determined that yes, it was that Jew doctor Asher, finally arriving in the middle of the goddamned night-hopefully to settle that Italian bitch’s screaming.

From atop the gatehouse, one of his comrades from Fort San Carlos called down: “Hey, Enrique, watch out for the latest invasion of Jews!”

Enrique sent a gesture over his shoulder that would have made even his harridan wife blanch and walked flatfooted and bored down toward the two creaking carts, each of which carried an immense barrel in their cargo bed. Either one was easily capable of holding more than a tun of wine.

“And what the hell are these?” the Catalan corporal asked.

“I’m sure I don’t know, Senor Corporal.”

Enrique narrowed his eyes at the cart driver, Roberto, second son of one of Bellver’s chief sutlers. All of whom were Jews, of course. All of whom claimed to be xuetas, conversos. All of whom were affixed like leeches to the public teat, and all probably still practicing their Christ-murdering practices covertly. And always trying to get away with some new, money-grubbing chicanery. Well, not on his watch. “So, tell me, Roberto the Jew, why would you be bringing a shipment to Bellver of which you have no knowledge? Didn’t your father sell it to us?”

“No, Senor Corporal. These are not provisions, but the doctor’s supplies. We are simply transporting it for him. He said the need for it was urgent.”

“And what is it?”

“Spirits,” replied Asher from the side of the cart. “Which I’ve been bringing up several times a week, if you recall.”

Enrique glared at Asher’s acerbic tone. “Oh, I recall, Jew-all too well.” He swiveled his eyes back toward Roberto, “I presume, though, that you’ve checked the contents of these tuns? And these smaller boxes along the sides?”

“Checked them? No, senor, we loaded all the goods and brought them here, for a fee. We are just teamsters, not sutlers, tonight.”

Enrique rolled his eyes. “How wonderful. So now I have to soil my hands handling Jew freight.” He called two of the local guards over. He pointed at the shorter one: “You, take the Jew’s two assistants to the gatehouse and check them as usual. And you, open these boxes. One at a time.”

The boxes held various implements that looked, in the lantern light, vaguely like a cross between medical implements and torture devices. “For aid in delivering infants,” Asher supplied.

Enrique held up a long, wicked looking knife. “And what’s this for? Slicing off their tails? Oh wait, that’s right: these infants aren’t of your breed, are they?”

Asher closed his eyes. “What other questions may I answer for you, Corporal?”

Enrique went to the rear of the wagon, looked at the sealed bunghole at the head of each tun and pointed to one. “Tap it,” he ordered.

Asher looked alarmed. “Corporal, I do not know how much of the spirits I will need, so I must not have you spilling it all out upon the-”

“Shut up, Jew. I am simply going to confirm it is what you say it is.” He got a cup from the waiting guard. “Now, tap it.”

Asher, the folds of his thin arms quivering as he wrestled to unseat the bung, angled it so that he could swap in the tap before the out-gushing stream became unmanageable. Wet and reeking of ethanol, Asher stood back.

Enrique tapped a finger’s width of the fluid, sipped it, smelling the sharp odor of strong liquor as he did so. He swigged it, gagged, spat out the mouthful. “What shit is that?” he shouted, wiping his lips with his sleeve.

Asher shrugged. “That one is spirits infused with witch-hazel.”

“Do you use it to heal your patients or torture them, Jew?”

Asher’s face was set rigidly. “May I go now?”

“Yes. We’ll join your assistants.” Enrique moved toward the gatehouse; Asher poled after him feebly with the aid of his cane. “So you’re expecting to deliver demon children, then-washing them with poison like that. And after all, anything but a demon child would die in minutes, if it was whelped this early in a pregnancy.”

“We are here trying to prevent birth, Corporal. To delay it until-”

“God’s balls, you think I’m interested in your sorcerous blatherings, Jew? Here, get in the watch room.”

As the guards began stripping Asher unceremoniously and searching both his body and garments, he asked. “Corporal, about my spirits. I expect to have immediate need of-”

“They’ll be in with the ready stores, as always. We’ll have to move some crates to the long-term storeroom to make enough space, though.” Spitting again, Enrique scowled. “You need all that? For one woman?”

“One woman who is carrying three fetuses. And I cannot know what will occur or for how long.”

“How can you need an amount of spirits equal to many times her body weight? That just doesn’t make sense.”

“First, Corporal, the other tun simply contains boiled, purified water. Second, I was not aware of your expertise in medical matters. Shall I send word to His Majesty Philip, by way of Governor Sancho Jaume Morales y Llaguno, that his prize hostage’s personal and obstetrical health is now being overseen by a corporal of the guards?”

Enrique glared, spat, and jerked his head toward the door. “Do your doctoring, Jew.”

Virgilio called for another long burn, and Miro complied. The dirigible rose toward the lower extents of the cloud bank and would soon be up in it. And that meant it would soon be necessary to coordinate with the Atropos by means of the telegraph wire that had been slaved to the primary tow-cord. Miro checked one of his favorite possessions-a manually wound up-time watch that had cost him a small fortune-and confirmed the time: approximately an hour and a half past midnight.

There had been occasional chatter in the gondola up to this point, but as the feathery gray masses of the clouds seemed to descend toward them, the airship grew quiet. Harry was already loading his tools and weapons, piece by piece, on what he called his “web gear,” carefully arranging it so that it would not obstruct the free play of the guidelines that were connected to the heavy black-leather harness he had shrugged into only a few minutes before.

Down below, the lights marking the boats of Miro’s flotilla began winking out, one by one. They were coming closer to the coast now, probably within forty minutes of their target.

Virgilio snapped an order at the Wild Geese, who dutifully tilted two empty oil containers over the side and into the lightless waters below. “Turlough, tell me as soon as we need more fuel for the engines,” he said with a nod of thanks. “We need to shift to gasoline soon. Doctor, if you would please man the telegraph; we need to coordinate our flight with the Atropos so we get the most power from her towing.” It was not a difficult task for a pilot as experienced as Virgilio when he had a clear view of the ship pulling him. But once they ascended into the clouds, once they lost sight of their comrades below, they would have to accomplish the same objective flying by instruments and feel alone.

Miro looked over the side at the boats again-and with a feathery fluttering of gray vapor, they were gone. The crew of the dirigible fell silent as they forged ahead into what looked like the mists of Limbo.

Thomas North looked toward the head of the column: the local guide had stopped, and his men were crouching low, in the surrounding bushes. They were in the higher reaches of the valley just to the south of Bellver, just before its walls began pinching tightly together into a gully known as the Mal Pas. The men stood out slightly against the sun-bleached sandstone that was increasingly poking through the dark scrub growth.

Thomas tapped the two rearmost of the group-Hibernians-on their shoulders: “Rearguard,” he muttered as he walked forward. They dutifully flanked well off to either side of the trail, crouching low into the scrub brush shadows, looking back down toward the dark bay.

As North arrived at the head of the column, the llaut ’s master and current guide nodded to a crevice in the sedimentary rock. “Here,” he said. “This is the cave.”

Thomas nodded and looked around more carefully, mentally removing the undergrowth: yes, they were in an old quarry. “And you have scouted the tunnel?”

“My cousin did, three days ago. It is all clear. They have either forgotten or ignored it. After all, there is no way to open the door up into Bellver from our side. And except for the ancestors of the xuetas who were impressed to build this place, probably no one knows their way through the tunnels, anymore.”

“Very well. We will travel with three bull’s-eye lanterns: one at the front, one in the middle, one at the rear.”

“Colonel, there are parts where only one man may pass at a time.”

“Very well: single file. Stay close to the man in front of you.” North checked his manual up-time watch, admiring the phosphorescent dot as it marched on its stiff, sixty-stepped circle around the miniature clock-face. “Let’s not be late to our own party.”