1635: The Papal Stakes

CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

Frank flinched as the door burst open. A man in a cuirass, equipped exactly like those he had seen in the courtyard of the Palazzo Mattei, came in at a crouch, a wicked-looking up-time rifle in his hands. Its muzzle swung swiftly, surely, in Don Vincente’s direction.

Frank jumped in front of Castro y Papas, arms spread wide in a covering gesture.

The man in the doorway snarled “Shite.” Then, louder: “You want to be rescued or not, Francis Stone?”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to kill him to do it.”

Don Vincente threw down his pistol in disgust. “Evidently not.” He turned to Frank. “How well you have learned the lessons of Rome, Frank. Deceit piled upon deceit. You have outdone your enemy, in this. Dakis was right: this is war-and I was a fool. I may have been a fool for one second, and he may have been a brute and a monster-but I was still a fool.”

Frank took a step toward the man he had once again started to consider a friend. “Vincente, tell me: is it ever right to kill a pregnant woman?”

Don Vincente frowned, then looked away. “No. Of course not.”

“So you were not a fool; you were a man with a terrible decision to make. And you made the right one.”

“Right for you, at any rate.”

“Yes, it helps us escape. But it also lets you keep your soul.”

Turlough Eubank shook his head in annoyance, shouted, “Two minutes!” and ran back out the door toward the fortified walkway.

Peering around a different merlon-no reason to give the bastards a consistent muzzle-flash to aim at-Harry Lefferts saw that Turlough Eubanks had at last arrived in his position just beyond the door into the lazarette. And just in time.

At some predetermined signal that Lefferts failed to detect, almost thirty Spanish rose up from behind the culverins, from out of the two closest towers, and from the cupola covering the stairs down to the upper gallery. A few paused to knock the torches from the cressets affixed to the towers; the rest charged for the fortified walkway that was the sole means of access to the lazarette. Lefferts measured their progress, assessed that he had maybe two seconds to spare, and spent it scanning the rest of his kill-zone. Sure enough, he spotted movement on two of the other towers: low, stealthy hints of arms, shoulders, heads over the edges of the battlements. These were the positions of marksmen assigned to kill him as he fired down at their charging comrades. Good luck, he thought, as he lined up the closest of the advancing Spanish and fired. The man went down, clutching his leg. Harry lined up another, got off a clean center-of-mass shot-and ducked, rolling behind the merlon and coming up on its opposite side.

At that same moment six, perhaps seven muskets roared from where Harry had seen the marksmen on the roofs of the other, lower towers. He popped up in his new position, took quick aim, and fired steadily at a spot on the east tower where dispersing gun smoke partially obscured motions consistent with reloading or exchanging spent weapons for fresh, preloaded ones. A surprised cry, a curse, sprawling bodies, moaning-and then Harry had to shift his focus back to swatting down the men charging the fortified walkway.

Too late: some had already arrived at the mouth of the narrow, stone chute-and Harry smiled as they discovered that it, too, was defended. Hunched low, and sheltering in the doorway of the lazarette, Turlough Eubank could not be seen beforehand-and could hardly miss the attackers: the walkway was hip high, and less than three feet wide. For a man to rush it, he had to enter that narrow tight space. And three of the Spanish did just that before the rest realized that not only was the walkway directly defended, but that the weapon doing so was like the one on the roof: it could apparently fire endlessly. Two more of the guards closed on the walkway, but with less eagerness than had those now piled up at its entrance. Harry took advantage of their hesitation: he put a round into each one’s chest.

Behind him, Lefferts heard the cable-whine that signaled the approach of the third man of his element-the Hibernian-descending in the bosun’s harness. The whine ended with a thump, a curse, and then the sound of a weapon being unslung. “Just in time!” Harry called over his shoulder. “Join the party.”

On the Castell’s main roof, the charge was wavering, particularly among the Spanish closest to the apparently unassailable walkway-and Harry knew he had them. Double-tapping each one quickly, he fired at those in the front, forcing them to either die or-in the case of the lucky ones who were not hit because of the darkness and his hasty shooting-flee. The Hibernian threw himself down into a crouch behind the adjacent merlon, raised his own SKS-a conventional model; no thirty-round clips for him-and began adding to the volume of fire.

It was impossible to know which finally broke the Spanish: their massive casualties, or the fact that there were now two of the demon-rifles spraying death down at them. Whichever it was, fewer than ten survivors managed to reach cover; perhaps an equal number lay on the roof, trying to stifle groans that would mark them for a second bullet. Harry could feel the lull in the action settle in, quickly swapped magazines, turned to the white-faced Hibernian. “Damn,” said Harry, just to keep the mood light, “I sure could go for a smoke about now.”

If anything, the Hibernian became more pale.

Sergeant Alarico Garza ducked as another bullet chipped away at the rim of the gallery. The nonstop thunderclaps on the roof above were not a good sign; there were a few musket discharges mixed in, but almost as afterthoughts. It sounded like a one-sided slaughter up there.

And for the first time in over twenty years, Garza hit a fork in his decision pathway for which he was not prepared: What now? If our men lose the roof, then Experience reasserted: Do your job. And your job is to hold this level. And right now, that meant holding the staircase that the enemy had just probed, and suppressing their activity in the arms yard.

But to counteract his enemies successfully, Garza needed to know more about them-and he knew almost nothing, other than that their weapons all seemed to be copies of, or actual, up-time firearms. How many were there? How much knowledge did they have about the Castell? How did the ones on the roof get there? Sergeant Garza was compelled to admit that each of these urgent queries was also utterly imponderable and so he lacked any hope of acquiring answers-which was not a good sign.

His corporal returned, crab-walking low with a small box.

“You found more grenades?” Garza asked.

“Four,” replied the corporal.

“Good. Get them over to the men watching the staircase. Are they ready, otherwise?”

“Yes, Sergeant-but they were hasty responding to the probe. Too many of them fired.”

Garza swore at himself: Yes, because you weren’t there to enforce discipline, to make sure that only two fired at first, and then two more when there was a clear target, and so on. “What are they down to?”

“Two loaded muskets. But all the pistols are still charged.”

Garza shrugged. “That is not so bad; pistols are better at these ranges. You’ll never get a chance to reload, anyhow. So, pistols, swords, grenades.” He mused. “Against these devils, knife range would be best, but we can’t hope for that. Now, off with you-and remember: no quarter asked or given.”

“No quarter,” repeated the corporal with a gulp before he continued on toward the staircase.

Owen Roe O’Neill finished giving his men their instructions and made sure their assault order was precisely as he had directed. “Now,” he said, “let’s to it.”

It had been a long time since he had uttered a war-cry-his Netherlands employers considered it a sign of irremediable Irish barbarity-but he loosed one now, to stiffen his own nerve. Because he had insisted upon being first around the corner-and knew exactly what that meant.

But his adversaries didn’t, not this time. Before charging, he stuck his pepperbox pistol around the corner and fired blind; several muskets sputtered back. Cocking the pepperbox again he heard angry orders in Spanish about wasting ammunition-and at that very moment he charged out, heading to the left.

The firing resumed as he emerged from the staircase into a cross-fire from doorways to both the right and left. But the Spaniards’ fire was ragged. And to add to the general confusion, Matija leaned around corner to hit the right-hand doorway with his twelve-gauge shotgun. He fired without precise aiming, emptying the weapon with a rapid pumping action that made it sound like a long, pulsed roar of thunder. The incoming fire from that side-lively at first-tapered quickly. But probably not for long, Owen knew.

As he took his first charging step along the broad walkway of the upper gallery, he ignored the second, further doorway on the left-where most of his adversaries were-and instead swung tight to the left again, into the first stairway, which led up to the roof. As he did so, two weapons from the further doorway discharged; one ball rushed past his unhelmeted brow in the same moment he felt a deep, hot, pain in his right thigh.

But the events piled up too rapidly for him to keep track of; Owen did not bother to aim as he came around into the new staircase. He fired blind, then slashed his saber in tight, fast, serpentine arcs until a pistol roared. He saw the outline of a Spanish helmet as the hammer blow of the pistol ball crashed into his cuirass.

Not the worst way to die, he conceded, as his back smacked down on the paving stones.

Matija tossed the shotgun, swung the SKS off his shoulder and started hammering rounds back to the left, just as Owen disappeared into the stairwell that led to the roof.

As his shots reverberated in that tight space, more of the assault team emerged; the Wild Geese were running past, firing on the move and staying close to the wall. The longer they stayed out of Matija’s field of fire, the longer he could suppress the defenders in the doorway that was their objective. But his magazine was just about dry He saw Spaniards going down as they exposed themselves to fire, saw one of the Wild Geese take two balls at brutally close range and topple over-and finally, saw two objects, each roughly the size and shape of a pomegranate, arcing out of the enemy-held doorway. He also noticed that they were trailing smoke and sparks.

“ Grenades! ” yelled Matija, charging forward, heading away from their probable point of impact behind him.

Apparently the defenders knew about counting down fuses: both grenades went off where Matija had been standing a second and a half before. He felt lancets of pain cut into his back, his buttocks, and the rear of this thighs. The shock of the blasts, while diffuse, shoved him sharply forward into one of the gallery’s arch supports head first; he rebounded from it, the world spinning. His head was suddenly full of a strange coppery smell and he reflected, Damn and shit, I thought death would hurt more than this. Why did I spend all that time worrying about it…?

As Thomas North came to the head of the stairs, he almost tripped over the body of a Hibernian: the only man who had been killed outright by the grenades. He took a quick, professional glance at the walkway just beyond; two more of his men were down and motionless, Matija and one of the Wild Geese-little Dillon, from the look of his gear. The stairway up to the left was quiet, but that was not necessarily a good sign. Insofar as Owen had been bound that way, and was not in sight, it could be a very bad sign indeed. The further doorway-the one where they had expected the most resistance-was littered with Spanish bodies, and the last four Wild Geese were charging through it now, hacking, slashing and firing their pepperboxes at murderously close range. Those clunky revolvers had proven just the trick in a close assault. If the Spanish stopped to reload, the bog-hoppers cut them down with sabers, but if the defenders drew swords of their own, the Irish cocked the revolvers already in their hands and riddled them with lead.

But their toehold on this second floor was tenuous at best. More Spanish regulars-this had been the level on which they had been billeted, evidently-were coming around the gallery from the left, led by a short, grizzled fellow, probably the senior commander. Some were already beginning to aim at the Wild Geese. Meanwhile, on the right, North saw movement in the doorways that Matija had suppressed with his torrent of shotgun fire.

Two new threats. For which he had two different answers. Which had both better work…

North pushed forward to the low rim of the gallery’s walkway, kneeling and aiming his SKS at the grizzled commander to the left. Feeling his group of Hibernians close around him, peripherally seeing the muzzles of their weapons matching the trajectory of his own, he then screamed at the top of his lungs, “Harry! HARRY! Southwest, level two! Southwest, level two!”

Then North and his three Hibernians leaned over their sights, training their weapons on the Spanish to the left.

Harry cocked his head. “You hear that shouting?” he asked the Hibernian with him.

“ Ja, that is Colonel North’s voice; I would know-and hate-it anywhere. Look.”

Harry did, peering down at the far right-hand side of the second gallery, or, as per the prearranged codes, “Southwest level two.” And sure enough, he could see Spaniards readying muskets and swords in the rooms closest to the stairwell. But from North’s position at the due west lip of the upper gallery, they’d still be almost completely concealed.

But not from the top of the lazarette.

Harry braced the SKS, leaned so that the forestock was resting in between the merlons instead of monopodding on the banana-clip. He angled the weapon slightly, letting the tightly clustered figures drift into his sights. “Let’s hit ’em,” he said to the Hibernian and started squeezing off rounds.

Concentrated as they were in the doorways, probably preparing to volley and countercharge, the Spanish went down in bunches. Even from this height, and in the dim light, Lefferts saw black spatters on the floor, corners, doors. Two of the defenders managed to scatter back into the rooms to avoid the deluge of up-time rifle bullets. Other than one who crawled back through a doorway, there was only feeble, indistinct movement among the Spanish bodies left behind on the gallery.

“What now?” asked the Hibernian when there was nothing left to shoot at.

“Now,” Harry answered with a grin, “we reload.”

As gunfire roared on the roof and down in the galleries, Asher’s medium-sized assistant picked up Castro y Papas’ weapons. The Spaniard looked down, his feet wide, his arms folded. “And now what?” he asked Frank.

“Well, you have a choice. You could stay here and be executed by your buddies.”

“Or be killed by you-which would be far more merciful, actually.”

“Or you could come with us.”

“What?” said Don Vincente.

“What?” said Giovanna.

“No!” said the regular-sized assistant.

Frank kept his eyes on Castro y Papas and shrugged. “It’s your choice. But you don’t have a lot of time to make it.”

A new wave of fast, pounding up-time rifle fire from both overhead and below emphasized Frank’s final point.

Sergeant Alarico Garza watched as half his men were slaughtered by the storm of fire coming down from above and cursed himself: I should have thought of that. With those guns, from up there, of course they’d be able to see and shoot down at anyone on the south side of the upper gallery.

But the entire attack on Bellver had been such a complete and swift surprise, and the effects of the up-time weaponry had been so shocking, that there just hadn’t been time to think of everything. If only he had been as fit and alert and prepared as he had been when he was ten years younger No time for that; since the enemy fire from the lazarette was now stronger than ever, it was obvious that the attack he had ordered across the main roof had been a complete failure. That left Garza and his few remaining men little choice: they had to send a volley against the cuirassed intruders on this level and then charge to sword-range. It was not a pleasing prospect, but it was the only tactic that might succeed when fighting in close quarters against these positively satanic up-time guns. And the longer he waited “Ready on the line,” Gazra said, and saw the muskets of his command come up sharply as he drew his sword. “Volley,” he cried-but the guns that answered were not his own.

Thomas North did not stop firing until he had expended half his magazine. He simply fired, rode the recoil back down, looked for a moving figure, centered on it, fired again. Now, as he stopped and looked up over his sights, he saw the grizzled enemy commander stagger, right himself, and then get shredded by four more rounds-two from his Hibernians, two more from the Wild Geese, who had finally cleared the room on the left and had turned to add to the barrage that swept the last cohesive Spanish unit away like dry leaves before a hurricane.

North jumped up, tapped the Hibernian to his left on the shoulder. “On me,” he said, as he sprinted over to the stairway leading up to the roof — and found Owen Roe O’Neill on the ground, the lower left side of his cuirass mashed and crumpled. Remembering the derelict cars he had seen being disassembled for parts and metal in Grantville, a term came to mind: Owen’s armor looked as though it had been “sideswiped.” But apparently not breached. The leg wound, however Owen’s eyes fluttered open, focused with surprising speed, and swiveled over toward North. “Ah, Jayzus Christ. So I got sent to hell, after all.”

“No such luck; you’re still alive, I’m afraid,” said North, suppressing a grin and helping the Irishman stand.

“Not by much,” commented O’Neill, looking down at the dead Spaniard, who’d fallen back against the stairs, his head half sheared away by a saber cut.

“No.”

“Just enough,” grumbled Owen, with a hand on his left side. “The barstard’s shot crushed my ribs, I’m thinking.”

“Might have done for one or two, at that. Looks like his gun was charged with small lead pellets. Lethal if fired into a mass of unarmed men, charging around the corner. On the other hand, a small pellet of soft metal like that is much less likely to get through your cuirass-but it will hit you like a battering ram.”

“Like two battering rams, if you please. Now, let’s get up to the roof and-”

“You are staying here, Colonel O’Neill. Take command of this level; make sure our men go room to room. I’m going to the roof.”

For once, O’Neill was either too tired, too dazed, too pained, or too sensible to argue; he simply waved North on his way with his pepperbox revolver.

North shouldered his SKS, drew his automatic, and, back flat against the wall, worked his way upwards.

It was a short, uneventful journey. At the top, there were two bodies, one of a man who had dragged himself back under the high, narrow cupola that covered the staircase; he had since succumbed to the wounds in his torso. The other was a Spanish regular who had apparently been using the cupola as a safe spot from which to return the fire raining down from the lazarette. Apparently, the position had not offered quite as much cover as he had hoped. Beyond the two bodies, the roof was devoid of motion or sound.

Well, we just might have pulled this off, thought North, who, taking cover against the possibility of hidden stragglers, shouted, “Castle!”

Harry’s answering cry of “Keep!” from the top of the lazarette was followed by one of the hillbilly’s customary wisecracks. “What took you so long?”

Which meant that they owned the whole building.