1635: The Cannon Law (assiti shards)

by Eric Flint

  The street outside was getting dim, and inside the bar it was almost pitch black. Frank had allowed one small candle, and made sure to stand well away from it. Maybe that Captain Don Vincente was a reasonably decent sort of guy and wouldn't order a massacre. That didn't mean that the musketeers across the street wouldn't do their level best to make sure there wasn't any resistance inside. The end of the bar where the candle was flickering and dancing was taking all the musket fire, with balls crashing into that part of the room a couple of times a minute. Piero, who was doing his level best to look nonchalant on a kicked-back chair with his heels on the bar, had tried running bets on how long it would take for the musketeers to succeed in shooting the flame out, but the joke had got old an hour ago.

  Frank cringed again as the cannon along the street banged-where, Frank wondered, did all those guys writing about old battles get the notion that cannon roared? This one made a huge bang and then shook the building and Frank's teeth. A roar was more drawn out, kind of. He tensed up for the crash, not that he ever did so in time, and then relaxed as he realized they'd missed again. That had made him giggle at first. Missing the broad side of a building was the standard of bad marksmanship. And then Frank had remembered what the captain had said; if he didn't want to simply smash up the cannon, he had to fire from along the street and make a hole in Frank's wall by bouncing cannonballs off it at an angle. A lot of that facade was wooden paneling between brick arches, and a fair proportion of that was already pretty busted up. Only the door was closed completely, although there was a chunk of the brickwork missing from one side of it already.

  It wouldn't be long, anyway. They were getting a shot off every three or four minutes. Frank had no idea whether that was quick or slow for three guns, but they'd kept it up for two hours now. They'd only missed a few shots, and the ones that had hit had got in between the columns of the brick arches that made up the front of the ground floor of his place and smashed the woodwork out of its supports. Frank wasn't too happy about what was happening to the brickwork, either. He wasn't an engineer, but there was one column that looked like it had had most of its outer face smashed away. And this building had been standing hundreds of years on those columns; Frank wasn't sure about how well they'd hold up with one of them shot away and all the others battered by a couple of dozen cannonballs.

  Piero coughed on the falling dust. It was pretty constant now, although when the cannons hit they produced a massive shower. Which was damn strange, actually. Given how much housework Giovanna had them all doing upstairs, it wasn't like there was any dust left in the place. "Seems like cannon are harder to aim than they look, eh?" he said.

  "Looks like," Frank said. "That makes, what, three or four misses?"

  "I count five, with that. I don't like the look of that wall, either."

  "I was wondering about that, too." Piero's presence was helping a lot. If he'd been on his own, he'd have gone completely nuts by now. One or two prisoners, the captain had said, and they'd decided on two. Piero was the only other realistic candidate. The Inquisition had to have Frank, no question. Of everyone who was left, Piero was the one with the most family connections and money and so had the best chance of getting off with the aid of a good lawyer and a little luck, probably with no more than a dose of intimidation by being shown a fully stocked torture room. Which was, apparently, standard procedure before questioning anyone. Piero planned to confess to a couple of years' worth of drunkenness, adultery and general misbehavior to keep them from torturing him because they suspected he was hiding something. He'd joked that if he was lurid enough in the details he could get the Inquisition to boot him out just to keep him from killing the priests with jealousy.

  Piero took a swig of wine. "I could wish it was safe to step out in the street and surrender."

  "We'd get shot. Whoever that inquisitor is, he got those guys with the muskets plenty stirred up." Most of the day had passed with no more than a desultory few volleys of fire from across the street, which had scattered a few splinters of glass and wood about the place and served to keep everyone's heads down. But being mostly out of sight of officers and not being in any position to do much other than waste ammo, the soldiers had settled into a rhythm of a shot every few minutes, apparently more for looks' sake rather than anything else. When the cannon opened up, the musketeers had stopped for a little while, and for a few minutes after the rest of the guys had gotten safely hidden upstairs Frank and Piero had considered going out and surrendering in the street so they didn't have to endure any more cannonballs crashing into the front of the bar.

  Then someone-or something-had made them go into high gear. There seemed to be more of them over there, too. From a shot every few minutes it went to two or three a minute, with occasional flurries that had Frank and Piero forgetting the nonchalance they were trying to display and crouching behind the invitingly solid bulk of the bar. Even the regular rate of shooting put paid to the notion of going out there. If nothing else, the sight of any movement in here would attract every would-be Hawkeye across the street.

  Same with the stable yard, which had a lot less cover and was overlooked by all of the buildings across the street. There was maybe three or four feet out front where a shooter on the roof opposite couldn't get them.

  Piero sighed between musket shots. "I know. What is keeping them? Surely even a Spanish soldier could make his way through what is left of your front wall? My great uncle Pierpaolo could get through some of those gaps, and he is famous for eating six meals a day."

  "Maybe they want to see a hole in-"

  Frank winced and hunkered down some more as another cannon-shot sounded, and this time hit the front of the building. A brief cacophony of bangs and crashes and a gentle shower of wood splinters and chips of brick told Frank that the thing had ricocheted inside the taverna. It sounded like someone had taken the entire contents of the building up to the roof and tipped the lot four storeys down on to the cobbles in one go, and finished with the sound of breaking glass.

  "Shit," he said, with feeling, once he was sure the little lump of hot iron had stopped bouncing around. "Second time that's happened."

  He risked a peek, surveying the piles of furniture in the main bar room area. There was just enough light to tell that what had already been a messy heap had now been stirred up and trashed even more. As he watched, a pile that had been tottering gave way, either knocked askew or with some crucial support smashed out. Another crash, this time a little less flinch-inducing. It looked like the cannonball had left through one of the windows to the yard; there was a little more light from the evening sky filtering in that way now. The next musket ball came by uncomfortably close, no more than eighteen inches above his head, and Frank ducked back down, his pulse suddenly hammering in his ears and his mouth full of the cold coppery taste of fear. Clearly he'd been visible, the movement maybe. Missing by eighteen inches was about par for what they were able to do with those weapons at fifteen, twenty yards, Frank recalled. So clearly they'd been aiming at him, not at the light at the other end of the bar.

  Sure enough, whatever it was that periodically put a wild hair up the asses of the musketeers started biting again, and a ragged volley of shots passed over Frank's head, and he heard the dull tock-tock-tock of rounds hitting the wood of the bar. Thank God for cheap carpentry, he thought. They'd saved on building the bar by doing it themselves. The counter itself had been installed by a pro, but the structure of the thing was something he and Salvatore had knocked together themselves using the parts from a couple of old, heavy tables they'd found when they moved in. The things had been something like the picnic tables Frank had known back in Grantville, except without the gaps between the planks, which were three or four inches thick. If I'd known, I'd have bought some sheet iron for 'em, he thought to himself.

  "I don't think those fellows like you all that much," Piero said, and the mournful tone in his voice gave Frank a fit of the giggles.

  "You think? I thought it was just the
guys with the cannon who were pissed at me."

  "No, those fellows are just crude in their wooing, Frank," Piero said, deadpan, and then, in the faggiest falsetto he could manage, "Look what a big gun I've got, Frank, let me fire it for you!"

  Frank knew he shouldn't, but he laughed anyway. What the hell, he was three hundred years away from Gay Rights, or whatever it was. And probably going to die anyway, a little voice at the back of his mind added. He laughed long and loud, and hoped the musketeers across the road could hear him. Even if they did, they slacked off the fire a little.

  Which meant that he heard the creaking start. "You hear that, Piero?" he asked.

  Frank could hear Piero swallow nervously before he answered. "A kind of groaning noise?"

  "I was thinking creaking," Frank said, wondering how in hell he was managing to fix on something so freaking trivial at a time like this. "I'm also thinking that this place isn't going to take much more punishment before it falls down. You want to take a look, see what you think? I think they're watching for me to poke my head up here."

  Which was true enough. But more to the point, Frank wasn't sure he could get up again, he was fast coming to realize. He'd tried to will his legs to stand up under him so he could poke his head over the bar, and found they wouldn't budge. He felt down each trouser-leg while Piero was risking a glance, and came up dry. He hadn't been shot. So this is what it feels like, Frank thought, being too terrified to move. He didn't feel like he was a gibbering wreck at all. In fact, he felt quite clear-headed. And he knew what he had to do, or ought to do, at least. He just couldn't make himself do it. He decided he'd shift a bit away from the position he'd been in, and found he could move quite handily if he didn't think about getting up. There was nothing wrong with his legs.

  He tried to stand up again, and couldn't. Even the thought of doing it made him feel nauseated, now, and his legs shook in their rebellion at what Frank was trying to make them do. And there was a constant whine of musket balls overhead and the occasional hammer-blow of a ball into the front of the bar to remind him of why this was so.

  Piero grunted a swearword and sat down heavily on the floor. The musket-fire shifted over to his spot, and that wild hair seemed to have gotten back up the musketeers. It was like being in a giant popcorn-maker for a few seconds. When it settled down, Piero called softly "You okay, Frank?"

  So he'd noticed Frank shuffling about. "Yeah, just getting comfortable," he said, and blushed at the lie. In the dark, Piero saw nothing. Frank hoped like hell his voice wouldn't give him away. "What'd you see?" he asked.

  "One of the pillars, to the left of the door, looks like it's about to give way. That last shot must've knocked out a big lump, there's about four, five bricks left right now, and the top part is leaning over. I think I see the ceiling sagging down some."

  Frank found his mouth going dry and his stomach churning. He needed the bathroom, and needed it real bad. He'd read an Edgar Allan Poe story when he was a kid, about some guy who got bricked up in a wall, and ever since then the thought of getting buried or shut in had creeped him out completely. Having it happen on top of an entire day of getting shot at was moving Frank's mental needle clear over to "wig out." He couldn't stop himself whimpering a little. Get a grip, Frank. "What about the guys upstairs?" he wondered aloud.

  There was a long pause from Piero. Frank took comfort from the fact that the thought of the ceiling coming down was getting to Piero too. Finally, Piero said, "Frank, at this time and in this place, sorry specimen of Christian charity that I am, I could not give a fuck about the guys upstairs. Their corpses will be on top of the wreckage."

  Frank thought he heard Piero's voice catch on the word corpses. Then he realized something else. "Hey, when did we last get shot at?"

  "You're right. Maybe it's about to be over." The sheer hope and yearning in Piero's voice almost made Frank laugh out loud.

  A loud and violent crunch, followed by a really loud creak interrupted the moment of good humor. And then there were loud, popping cracks, as of big pieces of timber splitting and breaking.

  "Piero, cellar! Now! It's going!"

  Piero was moving before Frank was done yelling, and made it into the mouth of the cellar stairwell before Frank had properly got his legs under him. They'd planned to retreat here if the musket fire got too intense, if it started coming through the wood of the bar. They hadn't figured to shelter in it if the place collapsed around their ears. Frank made it in to the mouth of the stairwell just as the noises stopped. He checked to make sure that the stairwell was still a solid brick construction, thanked any gods that might be around for medieval standards of design- if in doubt, overbuild -and peered around to see what the rest of the building was doing. The ceiling at the front of the bar was now sagging to four feet lower in the middle than it was at the sides. Some of the brickwork out front was still standing, but it looked like the collapse of the ceiling had knocked some of the pillars out. In fact, there was a huge pile of rubble out there, illuminated by something burning. Silhouetted by it, in fact. Frank hoped like hell that it was just a whole bunch of torches. If this neighborhood caught fire, they were all dead if the Spanish weren't real, real understanding about letting people escape.

  There's an inquisitor out there, dummy. Probably call it God's Will and a great saving in firewood if we burn to death of natural causes. Frank realized that the little voice in the back of his mind was back. Good timing. Great timing.

  "Are they beginning the assault?" Piero asked, real hope in his voice.

  That better not be because you're looking forward to a fight, Frank thought. "Can't tell," he said out loud, listening carefully. "Even if I could understand Spanish, I can't make out what they're yelling at each other."

  "Sounds like proper military shouting," Piero observed, and Frank quietly agreed that it did have that kind of sergeant-like flavor that jocks loved to imitate so much.

  On the other hand…

  "I can't tell if it's 'line up you guys and storm that building' or 'line up you guys and wait while we toss a couple grenades in there.' I reckon the difference could be important."

  "Grenades?" Piero spat. "Filthy weapons."

  Frank couldn't help but be amused. When all was said and done he reckoned violence and weapons were pretty much all as bad as each other, and the people who made them necessary didn't have much cause to complain if the other guy turned out to be more fiendishly inventive when it came to dishing out the pain and misery. Right up until the roof started collapsing he'd been thinking that he'd been in with a fair chance of ending this with nobody else getting hurt, and as such was ahead of the game. "You reckon?" he said, looking back at where Piero was displaying an authentic lefferto scowl. "Me, I think dead is dead. And from their point of view, tossing a couple of grenades in here would be a good way for them not to get hurt so bad, what with marching into a notorious nest of bloody-handed revolutionists and all."

  "True," Piero said. "But right now I don't feel like seeing the other fellow's point of view."

  Frank listened again. The shouting was still going on, and the firelight was moving about in a way that suggested torches. Frank had seen people lighting their way along the streets with the things and recognized the way they made the shadows shift and dance. It was one of the regular sights in a poor neighborhood such as this one, after dark.

  That was a relief. They weren't going to burn to death. There was still no shooting, which was another.

  "Reckon we can surrender now? Trying to defend a building that's falling down strikes me as hopeless enough that they'll respect us for giving in before they have to come in and get us."

  "Has to be worth a try," Piero said. "How are we going to do this?"

  "Let's keep it simple," Frank said, and cupped his hands around his mouth. "We surrender!" he yelled, hoping like hell someone out there could understand his Italian. He got up and walked toward the front of the barroom. "We surrender!" he yelled again, looking nervously at the saggi
ng ceiling, which picked that moment to creak forebodingly. None of you guys hiding upstairs better move suddenly, he thought. And then, in one of those thoroughly helpful contributions from his Inner Pessimist, and loud noises can start avalanches, can't they?

  He got near the front, picking his way though the mangled and shattered furniture, and yelled again. There was a sudden stop to the shouting outside. "Say that again," a distant shouted voice from outside called.

  "We surrender!" Frank yelled back. "The building is about to collapse!"

  There was a long silence, long enough for Piero to make it up next to Frank. "What'd he say?" he whispered.

  "Just asked me to repeat it," he whispered back. "He hasn't answered yet, though."

  "If they accept, let me go first," Piero said.

  "Why?"

  "You, they may shoot out of hand. Stay behind me until we are among them. They may not shoot if they do not realize who you are until too late."

  "Uh, right," Frank said. There were any number of holes in that argument, not least of which was that if they were going to be shooting captives out of hand they wouldn't be getting picky. That Don Vincente guy had said there was an inquisitor trying to run the show for him out there, and wasn't it the Inquisition who'd come up with Kill them all, God will know his own? Besides, if they wanted to make sure Frank was dead, all they had to do was wait. Maybe toss in a couple of grenades to help matters along a bit. Something cracked in the timbers above, and the ceiling shifted a little, causing a shower of dust and grit. Frank could hear it pattering around him on the floor and on the broken furniture.

  "How many of you are there?" came a shout from outside, followed by a white scarf on a stick poked in through a hole in the shattered wall.