1635: The Papal Stakes

CHAPTER SEVEN

North watched the light dying in the narrow strip of sky that looked down at them from between peaks that soared up and away like walls reaching to Heaven itself. Then he lowered his gaze to peer beyond the edge of their sheltering copse, following the track that descended toward the western extent of the Val Bregaglia.

But before the valley dipped down to where the Mera picked up speed and spread wider and shallower, the wagon track passed before the door of the humble church and cottages that comprised the hamlet of Castagena. Where, evidently, a wedding had run late; a dozen revelers were still milling about. Half seemed to be trying to tidy up the area and hush the other half. Who, for their part, seemed unwilling to realize that the festivities had ended.

North drew a deep breath. “Pass the word: as soon as the last of these bloody merrymakers have cleared off, we travel weapons out and at the trot. We have to move swiftly to the extraction site and establish our defensive perimeter in the dark. Not a simple exercise.”

“And still no way to know if there will be anyone there to be extracted.”

“Yes, a bit problematic, that.”

“How long do we wait at the extraction site, Colonel?”

North gave Hastings a sour look. “Until it’s time to leave. How the hell do I know how long we’ll have to wait?”

Nichols put a hand on Tom Simpson’s arm. “Hold up, there. Let me look at that wound, again.”

“Doc, we don’t have the time-”

“There’s a lot of things we don’t have the time for. You bleeding to death is on the top of the list. Now stand still.”

The rest of the group moved on ahead. Melissa’s iron determination had kept her going-that and the decreased pace that Tom had set. Rita and Arco were taking turns all but carrying Ginetti as they made their way upslope around a hamlet that made tiny Piuro look like a bustling metropolis.

Tom looked over his shoulder. “Is it bad?”

“Not bad but messy. And unlucky. This musket ball reopened the grenade wound you picked up while rescuing Urban. I’ve got no way to stop the bleeding out here.”

“Can’t you-I don’t know-bind it?” Tom felt idiotic even as he said it.

James Nichols’ long silence made him feel even more stupid. “Tom, just how would you propose I bind a lateral wound on a single buttock?”

“Okay, dumb idea. Look, we don’t have much farther to go. On the far side of the hamlet-Villa, I think they call it-the Mera widens out. There’s a light forest hugging the north bank. When we get beyond that forest, we’re at the rendezvous point. So listen: you go on ahead and-”

Tom felt James’ shoulder muscles, corded with age but still strong, slip under his right armpit and hoist. “Nope. You’re coming with us.” Tom rose to his feet, wobbled.

“Pain?” asked Nichols.

“Naw, just dizzy.”

“That’s the blood loss.”

“Blood loss? What, do I have an artery in my ass?”

“No, Tom. But you’ve been pushing yourself over hill and dale for hours now, and even slow bleeding is going to make you light-headed and weak.”

“Not a good time for those symptoms,” Tom observed, trying to move without Nichols’ help, but not succeeding brilliantly.

James Nichols paused, lifted his head to hear over the Gallegione cataract crashing down from the heights ahead and to the north. “No, not a good time at all.”

Tom had heard it too: the fraction of a shouted order. In Spanish, and farther back along the wagon track they had been following.

It had become so dark that Miro was uncertain how Franchetti was flying. The last light glimmered off the Lunghinsee, far to the left. The lake was the source of the River Inn, a distinction that conjured images of a broad expanse of water, cascading over rocks in a flume that would eventually reach the sea. But in actuality, the Lunghinsee was a puddle compared to the Marmelsee. It was small, stark, and alien: an absolutely unrippled mirror surface, held in the grip of mountains as barren as those of the moon.

The dirigible dipped sharply; Miro and the other passengers braced themselves, but Franchetti’s explanation-shouted over the engines-put them back at ease. “We have gone over the Septimer Pass, which is just above seven thousand, two hundred feet. The last alps of the Oberhalbstein Range are now behind us to the left, the west. We now head down into the Val Bregaglia by turning west at Vicosoprano.”

“And we should be at the rendezvous in how long?”

“I cannot say until we see what the winds are like in the valley. But about half an hour. Sooner, if conditions are good.”

Miro turned to the Wrecking Crew. “Ready your weapons.”

North hissed at Hastings as he went past. “Keep your squad away from the banks of the river; there isn’t enough tree-cover there.”

Hastings looked dubiously overhead at the stars that were beginning to shine through the dusty-rose and mauve of late dusk.

North grumbled as Hastings opened his mouth to reply. “No, Lieutenant, it’s not as dark as you think. Not so dark that buckles and barrels won’t catch a bit of light and alert the Spanish. That’s why our men’s rifles went back in their cases for the nonce. The Spaniard is not always imaginative, but he’s a steady, seasoned soldier. If you get lazy, he will teach you the error of your ways: a lesson that might end with you waking up in Heaven. Or in slightly less lofty regions, in your case.”

“Yes, sir.”

“No heroics, Hastings. When you get to the edge of the woods overlooking the cataract, set up a loose skirmish line that extends upslope thirty yards from the cart-track.”

“Sir, this being spring in the Alps, there could be several mountain run-offs, so how can I tell which-?”

“Hastings, this is a genuine cataract. Flows all the way down from the peak of that alp”-He pointed up at the pink-tinted snow-cap of the Piz Gallegione, towering over them just to the north-“so I don’t think you’re going to miss it. Although, in your case-”

Hastings cleared his throat. “And you’ll be in reserve behind us, sir?”

“Yes, but I’ll be down two men. They’ll be detached to make contact with the airship when it arrives in at the extraction site. And while we’re waiting for Captain Simpson’s group to arrive, do see if you can keep from getting killed, Lieutenant. It would take an unreasonably long amount of time to train someone to replace you. Given the high caliber of your skills, I estimate it might even require two days. Now go-and remember: even with the countersign, it’s going to be difficult distinguishing friend from foe in this light. No eager trigger-fingers.”

“Yes, sir.” And Hastings was gone, a shadow consumed by shadows.

North looked out over the broad spread of the Mera, smooth and quiet here, though he could make out two pinpricks of yellow light just beyond where the river gathered together and, swollen by the cataract, plunged down once again. Probably oil lamps in upper story windows of Villa, he thought. But five years ago, my eyes were keen enough that I wouldn’t have had to guess. I’m getting old, damn it. Old.

Hell, next month, I’ll be halfway through my thirties.

Tom ran, limping, to join the rest of them at the edge of the fuming torrent that swirled down into the Mera at the northeastern edge of Villa.

Rita and Arco, supporting Ginetti on either side, ventured into the swift current, stumbled, righted themselves, and then fell again, going down to their knees.

“Shit,” swore Rita, grabbing after the limp cardinal.

“ Merde,” echoed Arco.

A light came on in a second story window of the largest house in Villa.

Now, reflected Tom, things are likely to get very interesting.

As the airship passed over Castagena, Franchetti started leveling out from his descent. The Val Bregaglia was almost flat here, allowing the Mera to fan out. Miro, hand upon the covered bull’s-eye lantern that was to serve as a landing light, started looking for the prearranged extraction zone, a meadow just north of where the river widened Melissa, forgetting her own infirmities, jumped over to help the cardinal back to his feet; James scrambled into the water after her A musket discharged from within the confines of the town. The ball struck one of the rocks flanking the ford, pieces of stone spalling upslope. The miss had been well wide of the group that was struggling over the shallows in the dark, but it was close enough to be worrisome. Orders were shouted in Spanish. From back along the upslope path they had followed to get here, a whistle shrilled in answer.

Tom dropped into a crouch. He exhaled through the sudden flare of pain that blossomed as his right buttock hyperextended. The Spanish were coming from two directions. One group had followed the upslope trail, which put them due west. The other group-probably the larger of the bodies of troops-had stayed on the wider, better track that wound through Villa; they were approaching from the southwest. Probably at a good clip.

Tom pulled out his revolver, checked that the priming caps were snugly seated. Not long now.

Having just settled his squad within the trees one hundred yards west of the extraction zone-about a third of the distance to Villa-North tilted his head to listen. Yes, that was a musket report, which came across the sluggish water like a sighing pop! “Damn it.”

The colonel’s batman, Finan, scuttled over. “Sir, what is it?”

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what, sir?”

North closed his eyes, remembered a particularly apt American exchange, reprised in so many of their movies. “I have good news and bad news.”

“Sir?”

“The good news is that Captain Simpson and his party are still alive, and are, in fact, quite close.”

“And the bad news is-?”

“That we’re not alone. Send a runner to Hastings: positive target identification before firing. It’s going to be close.”

As Finan disappeared into the murk, another two shots came faintly over the water.

Very close indeed.

Harry Lefferts stood. “Okay, that wasn’t ‘just my imagination.’ Did you see the flashes?”

Miro nodded. “At the western end of the wide part of the river, near the Piz Gallegione cataract.”

Harry turned. “Listen, we’re not going to be able to run over there in time to save them, not if we land here at the extraction site.”

Miro nodded again:; Lefferts’ assessment was inarguably correct. “So where’s Colonel North?”

“If he’s here, he’ll be somewhere between the extraction zone and the anticipated contact point.”

Miro peered at the thin woods. “I don’t see anything there.”

“Of course not. North is good: you won’t see him until he wants you to.”

“So what do you recommend?”

Harry frowned, considering. “North will stay under cover until we signal. But with a firefight in progress, we’d be stupid to follow the original plan to hover out over the river. And he’d be stupid to give away his position before seeing us. So we have to change the plans. We have to send the first signal. We shoot the first whistle-bolt.”

Miro met Harry’s eyes. He saw eagerness but no berserkergang, no indication of a battle lust that might impede judgment. He looked over Lefferts’ shoulder at Matija. “Shoot the bolt.”

Tom couldn’t see the Spanish approaching, but he could hear them. Muttered orders, whispered acknowledgements, occasional rustling and soft footfalls: the sounds of a stealthy platoon advance.

The only other two shots the Spanish had fired were blind misses, meaning that the first shot’s proximity had probably been the result of luck, not skill. Probably a Hail-Mary discharge in the general direction of the voices heard at the ford.

Which the last of the group had almost traversed. The cardinal had cleared the rocks on the other side, hanging like a drowned rat between Rita and Arco. Melissa was finally picking her way out of the churning white melt-waters, too-and then she went down, quick and hard, with a most improper and biologically implausible oath.

The timing was unfortunate. James had just turned to start back and help Tom across. Hearing Melissa’s sharp cry, Nichols spun and caught her arm before the rush of water could carry her under and away. Pretty damned spry for a guy in his sixties, thought Tom. But as James helped Melissa hobble up out of the frothing current, he glanced back over his shoulder. His eyes-desperate and apologetic-met Tom’s.

Tom Simpson nodded his understanding and approval; a man’s first duty was to his woman. Nichols faded into the trees on the far bank, working as a human crutch for Melissa. It was obvious that her ankle was at least sprained, maybe broken.

Tom looked at his black-powder revolver, wished it was any one of a half dozen up-time weapons he had used in the past three years. But that kind of armament had been deemed both unnecessary and too unsubtle when they set out on this journey. Back in safe, sunny Padua. Back before they were given the additional task of rendezvousing with a renegade cardinal who had the physique of a couch-potato.

Tom hunkered down behind the largest rock he could find, took the cap-and-ball revolver in both hands-and heard a strange bird call over the water. Wait: was that-?

North held up his hand. “Was that a-?”

Finan nodded. “Sounded like a long-winded whip-poor-will to me, Colonel.”

The signal. The dirigible was here.

“Fire our bolt,” he hissed urgently at his batman. “Right now, out over the water.”

Lefferts was focused in a way that Miro had never seen before. Now he understood why, despite his swagger and reputation for occasional impulsiveness, Harry had been so successful on operations like these. “Franchetti,” the up-timer said, “keep us close to the slope, inside the shadows if you can.”

“ Si, but where am I-?”

“Look dead ahead, due west, just upslope of where the cataract hits the river. You see that small pasture?”

“Near the abandoned farmhouse?”

“Yeah. Can you put down there?”

“Well, yes, but-”

“Do it. Now.” Lefferts turned to the rest of his Wrecking Crew. “Well, folks, it might be a hot LZ. Ready for some fun? ”

Tom Simpson heard a second strange birdsong-the whistle-bolt countersign-respond promptly to the first and allowed himself a small smile. Well, I just might get out of this alive, after all…

Four shots sputtered from between the buildings in Villa; two more came from upslope, flashes marking their sources within the tree line. Most of the balls missed by a reasonable margin; one thumped into a decayed tree trunk lying in front of the rock behind which Tom had taken cover.

But then again, I might not.

North stood as the runner he sent to the front rank returned. Before the winded fellow could speak, the colonel gave new orders. “Back you go. Tell Lieutenant Hastings that he has a new relief force coming in on his right flank.”

“A new relief force? Where from, sir?”

North pointed upward. “From thin air.” He motioned for the rest of his squad to get their rifles out of their all-weather hide cases. “Ready on the line,” he ordered, as he readied his up-time nine-millimeter pistol.

Franchetti screamed, “Pitch the engines down! Full braking thrust!”

Miro complied, yanking the engine angling bar up sharply. The props rotated into an earth-aimed attitude, slowing the descent. The gondola came to an unsteady halt, a mere four feet off the ground.

Juliet-a short, round woman-looked dubiously at the gap that Lefferts, Gerd, and Sherrilyn had already jumped down.

“C’mon!” hissed Lefferts, before disappearing into the downslope tree line, with the Gallegione cataract roiling and crashing on its downward tumult about thirty yards to his right.

George Sutherland hopped to the ground-lightly for a man of his size-and held up his arms for his wife. “Down you come, dear.” He said it as if she were descending from a coach after a ride in the country-which is how she exited the airship.

Franchetti glanced back. “Don Estuban, we should-”

“Yes-yes, Virgilio; take us back to the extraction point.”

As Miro and Franchetti swiveled the engines into a down-draft position again, and throttled the burner up, the dirigible rose and swung away from the small meadow.

In the back of the gondola, the one remaining passenger started praying in Latin.

Tom let the first tactical probe get within twenty-five yards before he fired four times, quickly. Of the three approaching Spaniards, two fell: one, howling and writhing; the other, silently and limp. Having finally given away his position, Tom ducked, just in time to hear a ragged crackle of musketry from both the hamlet and the upslope trail. Perhaps a dozen balls spattered Tom’s sheltering rock, the rotted log, and the ground nearby. Many more hissed into the white, whirling veils of the cataract and beyond, into the trees.

Tom popped up, saw a thin horizontal line of gun smoke diffusing slowly in his direction. He also saw the last Spaniard advancing on his flank, hunched low, pistol and sword at the ready. Tom fired twice at the skirmisher, turned and jumped into the stream, hopping and struggling his way across. The Spaniard’s pistol, and a more distant musket, discharged behind him; either Tom was not hit, or he did not feel it. Either way, he continued his uneven progress across the ford, wondering how long the gun smoke would obscure the vision of the Spanish line, and how long it would take them to reload.

Harry Lefferts was so focused on finding a way to get closer to the cataract that he was completely surprised by the buff-coated man who rose up in front of him. Jerking to a startled halt, Harry squinted into the near-dark: the man’s weapon was an immediate giveaway as to whose side he was on.

Harry moved the barrel of the down-time box-magazine Winchester away from his belly. “Wondered where you guys were,” Lefferts drawled.

“Waiting for you.”

“Oooh, snappy. I like that. You also just about scared me out of my pants.” He looked the mercenary up and down. “You’re pretty damned good. Wanna work for me?”

The man shrugged. “I like my boss.”

“I pay better.”

“I doubt it. And I’ve got a family. Lieutenant Hasting is just down the slope.”

“No time to find him. How are you deployed?”

“Loose skirmish line from here to the river to cover Captain Simpson’s group as they come up the track.” As if to emphasize the harried approach of that group, a clatter of musketry rose above the dull thunder of the cataract.

“Any force closer to the ford?”

“No. None to spare. We’ve only got two squads.”

“You’re only one squad, here. Where’s the other?”

“Landing zone security and uncommitted reserve.”

Harry scowled a little. Frequently, the word “reserve” translated as the hiding place for cowardly commanders. “I see Colonel North is sitting this one out.”

“That’s not how we see it.”

“Well, we can debate that over a beer some time. We’re going in.”

“In? In where?”

Harry pointed in the direction of the recent fusillade. “In there.”

“You’re going to attack the Spanish?”

Harry smiled and waved for the Wrecking Crew to follow him southwest, angling to follow the upslope limit of the woods. “Not directly.”

Tom reached the other side of the ford just as the muskets started sporadically barking at him again. However, from the sound of it, most of the Spanish were giving chase, not stopping to reload. In the dark, any gunfights at ranges greater than ten yards were pretty much pointless.

Feeling solid ground under his feet, Tom up and sprinted forward, following the cart-track. The pain of his reopened wound returned sharply, now reaching up into his lower back. When the shooting had started, adrenaline had swept the discomfort away, but that relieving rush was gone; soon, he’d start limping, stumbling He heard movement upslope, some yards beyond the trees linking the track.

Impossible. There had been no way to cross the cataract higher up; how could the Spanish have anyone on his northern flank?

Desperate, and experiencing true panic for the first time in many years, Tom Simpson found another surge of strength which sent him dashing forward along the track.

Lieutenant Hastings watched the man and woman help the little priest stumble past his position, and right behind them, an odd couple indeed: a fit, yet clearly older woman with a useless, dangling foot, being almost dragged along by a fit, but equally aged Moor. And, still farther back along the track, another very large silhouette was emerging from the darkness…

Corporal Eugenio Morca de Torres clambered out of the frothing current, cocked his miquelet musket, aimed after the fleeing figure, then lowered his weapon. Cono, the big American was fast, even when wounded. He waved for his men to follow and ran in pursuit.

Harry skidded to a halt, five yards from where the woods ended at the cart-track. He saw a figure running down there, heading towards North’s forward skirmish line. A big figure. Tom Simpson. Had to be.

Catching a tree branch to slow himself, George Sutherland readied his up-time shotgun, tracking back along the route of Tom’s retreat. Troop sounds-a platoon or more moving quickly-were growing loud enough to rival the cataract back there.

Harry shook his head. “Not yet.”

Lieutenant Hastings saw that the approaching figure was the large up-timer, Tom Simpson. He was limping and staggering, now, probably both wounded and exhausted. And behind him, only twenty yards or so, the first of the Spanish were visible. And one, in the lead, was stopping, raising his arms…

…drawing a bead?

Lieutenant Hastings brought up his Winchester and yelled, “Get down, Simpson. Squad, fire at will!”

Tom heard the British accent, almost sobbed in relief, and dove forward with the same gusto and abandon that had propelled him into Ohio State’s end zone when it had been fourth quarter, two minutes left on the clock, and fourth-down-and-goal-to-go from the three-yard line.

Corporal Torres felt the men on either side of him go down, and discharged his musket in the direction of the small and ominously rapid muzzle flashes. Up-time weapons or copies-no doubt about it. But the range was close, and he had fifty men. And since one of their quarry was obviously a Moor, it seemed only right to cry, “Santiago and at them!” Dropping his spent firearm, Torres sprinted forward. Drawing his sword, he swept it back in readiness…

“Now,” said Harry calmly.

Five yards beyond the upslope trees that lined the cart-track, the nine members of the Wrecking Crew unleashed a near-uniform volley from their trademark pump shotguns. With the center of the ragged enemy column now directly abreast of the Crew, the carnage was startling. More than a dozen Spaniards sprawled, theirblood black in the early moonlight.

The lethal, hollow-tube sound of the shotguns’ cycling actions-the dull ker-throonk of rounds being fed back and up from under-barrel magazines-offered a faint counterpoint chorus before they roared again. Other sounds of twentieth-century slaughter added to the waves of sound, echoing off the rocks of the Val Bregaglia several more times before giving way to absolute silence.