by Eric Flint
“And until then?”
Gasquet pulled a stick-mounted mirror and a whistle out of his satchel and laid them in ready reach. “Until then, we wait.”
The choir began to sing, and the sun edged higher.
* * *
The sun dial was touching the nine-thirty mark when the last notes of the concluding hymn suddenly increased in volume: the cathedral doors had been opened once again.
Müller’s head snapped up. “Now what?” He sounded groggy.
“Now you stay awake. Things should start moving pretty quickly.”
Crowds were pouring out the doorway, quickly ushered aside to make a path for those who were following, and also for three sedan chairs approaching from the cloister.
“For the pope?” Müller wondered aloud.
“That’s what our crossbowmen have been told.”
“Crossbowmen? Where?” Müller rose slightly, head swiveling through the points of the compass.
Gasquet reached over, pulled him down. “Remain hidden, oaf. Our job is to observe, only.”
As the crowd filed out, the army guards turned their heads slowly, dutifully, in a dumb-show of ostensibly scanning for suspicious characters or weapons. However, as the volume of the exiting faithful began to taper, one of the Wild Geese extracted a golden-haired man from the line: it was von Meggen. Again he was searched, thoroughly but without the same rehearsed precision demonstrated by the Hibernian Mercenaries, and then released. But as he went slowly down the steps, he cast an expectant gaze back up over his shoulder.
The Prouvènço swung his Dutch telescope up along the path of von Meggen’s glance and discovered Ruy Sanchez himself staring down from between the shutters of a narrow window, probably on the staircase that led up to the rather alarmingly tilted belfry.
Müller’s gaze had tracked along with the aim of Gasquet’s telescope. The Swiss apparently had very keen eyes. “That’s the Catalan, Sanchez.”
“Yes.”
“Well, what is he doing up there?”
“Looking for us.”
“What?” It sounded as if Müller had swallowed his tongue. “Us?”
“Not you and I specifically, you dimwit. But persons like us.”
“Like us? What do you mean?” If Müller was insulted by Gasquet’s characterization, he gave no sign of it.
Gasquet was grateful that his impatient slip hadn’t angered the Swiss, since there was little enough trust or amity between the two groups involved in the plot as it was. “I mean that they are clearly interested in watching whom von Meggen joins as he exits, or if someone is loitering around, watching over him. They—or at least the Catalan—are not entirely certain he is acting genuinely; they are prudent, watching any person who tries to get direct access to Urban. They cannot afford to simply accept any such overtures as innocent, not without being watchful for signs that it is part of a broader ploy.”
Von Meggen had rejoined the rest of the prospective Swiss Guards at the base of the cathedral steps. After a few moments of conversation, those who truly shared his hopes began smiling and nodding; the others, led by Eischoll, evinced muted versions of similar interest. Some were markedly better actors than their fellow-conspirators.
Müller frowned. “So they—we’re—all part of the Papal Guards, now?”
Gasquet looked sideways: it was hard to believe that he, a Prouvènço, knew more about the formalities of that process than a Swiss. “No. In a situation like this, there is usually a review of all prospective guards by a direct papal representative or the pope himself, since the old commander is dead. I suspect your young idealist’s happy news is that the pope has agreed to his proposition in principle.”
Müller nodded. “Okay. But will it happen in time?”
Gasquet shrugged. “As far as I can tell, we’re not in any rush.” Von Meggen’s group started moving away from the steps of the cathedral. Gasquet looked back up toward where Sanchez had been watching; that window was empty, now. “Apparently the Catalan didn’t see anything worth investigating.” Which had probably not surprised him; only rank amateurs would have attempted to contact von Meggen immediately upon his exit from St. John’s. But it would have been equally amateurish not to keep an eye out for such a suspiciously-timed meeting, and whatever else Sanchez was said to be, an amateur was not among the labels affixed to him.
It was also not the sign of an amateur that three draped sedan chairs were now nearing the cathedral steps to fetch the pope, rather than a single open one. Von Meggen saw the approaching procession, conferred quickly with Eischoll, who nodded vigorously and assisted him in not only stopping the rest of the Swiss, but arranging them in a rough cordon along the likely exit route of the pontiff. As they did so, the sedan chairs and their bearers made their way up the steps and into the cathedral, one after the other.
“A shell game?” Müller wondered with a frown.
Well, he wasn’t completely dense. “It is how they move the pope around the town, on the rare occasions that they do.” What Gasquet did not add was that, over his weeks of watching, he suspected that, on some occasions, and between certain locations, the sedan chairs were nothing more than a decoy. The last three hundred years of Besançon’s history had been rife with changes in rulers, in laws, in tolerance for different faiths. It was rumored that hidey holes and secret passages had been constructed and then forgotten by generations of refugees, informers, spies, and heretics, only to be rediscovered by thieves, murderers, and black marketeers.
However, whatever truth there was to such tales, and whatever shadowy pathways might exist, that knowledge was now possessed almost solely by the less savory local elements, with whom Gasquet had minimized contact. After all, if they were willing to take coin to assist him, they’d be at least as likely to accept even more coin to betray him. So the possibility that the pope moved through unseen tunnels on occasion remained a tantalizing but unconfirmed suspicion.
The first of the sedan chairs emerged from the cathedral, surrounded by a mixture of Burgundian soldiers and Wild Geese. As it started down the stairs, the troops in the square started pushing back the crowd—including the Swiss, who seemed more than mildly affronted. But that was of no concern: Eischoll had competently shepherded von Meggen’s group to the correct spot.
When the second sedan chair did not appear, Gasquet granted that he was dealing with true professionals and that his crossbowmen never had a chance to attack two targets at the same time. By returning to the safety of the cloister singly, no assassins could hope to have better than a one in three chance of attacking the correct chair—assuming the pope was in any of them. But no matter: the crowd was dense, the babble of voices loud, the potential for confusion greatest. Gasquet picked up the stick-mounted mirror, slipped it into the sunlight, tilted it in the direction of the top of the Porte Noire.
Müller, following the angled flash, tensed expectantly as a faint silhouette rose into view atop the ancient Roman gate. The outline was that of a kneeling man, training a crossbow down at the sedan chair. When it’s string released, no sound rose above the general din of the faithful multitudes straining for a view of Urban, the incarnate link between God’s divine and mundane kingdoms.
The quarrel ripped into the low-center of the sedan-chair’s front drapery, made a tearing sound as it buried itself in whatever chair was behind it. The sudden agitated swirl of the pierced drapery and the panicked flinch of two of the bearers, triggered an immediate chorus of cries, shrieks, and gasps. Half of the crowd’s heads and torsos began wrenching around in attempts to discover where the shot had come from.
The Wild Geese were far more focused. The tall dark one who had been leading the escort gestured high, beyond the front of the sedan chair. Two of his men quickly pointed toward the silhouetted attacker, who was clearly working to reload the crossbow. The leader leaned back toward the cathedral’s doorway: probably calling out the location so it could be relayed to whatever Hibernian snipers were in the vicinity.
In that second, dozens of the crowd had rushed toward the sedan chair, some in an apparent reflex to help their possibly stricken pope, others with the wide eyes of those drawn by the anticipation of a ghoulish spectacle. They came up sharply against the Burgundians, several of whom seemed to misinterpret the crowd’s reaction as an assault, or at least, a complete disregard of their authority. Weapons were raised; one or two fell. Shrieks of pain and howls of outrage added to the bedlam.
At that moment of perfect chaos, four men broke free of the crowd, two carrying crossbows, two more producing suddenly smoking containers. The crossbowmen kneeled, fired. One of the two Burgundians in the path of the pair of charging assassins fell limply; the other staggered back, dropping his sword to lock his hands around the quarrel protruding from his left leg.
The sudden attack caused a brief, stunned ebb in the uproar—but then it rushed back in, redoubled and horrified.
But not before the two lead assassins sprinted along the path that had been cut by the crossbowmen and reared back to heave their smoking jars up the stairs toward the cathedral’s doorway.
Von Meggen and Eischoll charged in from the side, tackling them. One of the bombs simply fell and rolled away, the burning rag stoppering it flaring irregularly. The other one was just leaving its wielder’s hand when von Meggen tackled him. The firebomb wobbled into the air, landed on the stairs between the sedan chair and the thinned cordon of Burgundian soldiers: flaming oil splashed out in every direction. One of the Burgundians’ tabards began smoking and hissing; the rent drapery of the sedan-chair torched with a sharp, breathy whoosh!
As fire leaped along the frame of the sedan-chair as if it was seasoned kindling, the rest of von Meggen’s Swiss caught the two crossbowmen, who, apparently startled by the swift response, dropped their recocked crossbows and tried to press back into the crowd to avoid capture. Before they could do so, the Swiss had pulled the assassins down and hands began rising and falling in the scrum beneath which they were buried. Two of those hands held knives.
As Eischoll performed similar, and quite practiced, execution upon the bomb throwers, von Meggen raced to the nearest crossbow, scooped up one of the quarrels that had been abandoned, fitted it, and raised the weapon toward the silhouette atop the Porte Noire.
That attacker had already fled to the northern side of the gate, but then stopped as if surprised, as if he had prepared a method of escape there but now found it mysteriously gone. He began running back across the top of the Roman arch, making for a nearby roof.
Von Meggen gauged carefully, fired—and missed. As did the rifle that spoke from the cathedral’s bell-tower at almost the same second; stone fragments spat out from the top of the arch. The assassin sprinted harder.
Von Meggen seemed to be so absorbed with cursing himself that it took a moment for him to realize that Eischoll was beside him, handing him the other crossbow: loaded. Ignaz von Meggen did not even smile; he grabbed the weapon, raised it, aimed, and fired.
The assassin let out a faint cry. Hit just below the hip, he staggered, and pitched over the far side of the arch. Eischoll shouted for the Swiss to follow him, and with blades out, they rushed toward the twitching body that was face down on the street cobbles. The ones who reached it first were the older impostors. Their knife work was every bit as swift and efficient as Eischoll’s had been.
Müller was silent for a long moment, did not notice that Gasquet was already returning the telescope to its case and policing the area to make sure they had not left any spoor to mark their position. “Were they your men?” Müller asked in a voice of almost childlike uncertainty.
“They were. We must go. Now.”
“Yes. But—did you really think they could succeed?”
“At killing Urban? It was possible, but unlikely.”
“Then why—?”
Gasquet rounded on the Swiss. “To give young Freiherr von Meggen an opportunity to prove his and his men’s loyalty to the pope. And now, they’ve demonstrated their eagerness to risk their lives in his service.”
“So…so you meant to kill your own men?”
Gasquet sneered as they crept toward the edge of the roof that faced away from the cathedral. “If by ‘my men’ you mean those ill-trained cutthroats I retained a week ago with a few silver pennies and a few flagons of wine, then yes, I did. Now, hurry, or I may begin considering a similar fate for you.”
As Müller complied hastily and Gasquet gauged the jump down to the ground, he thought, As if I’m not already doing exactly that, you Swiss oaf.
Chapter 10
“Maleït sigui!” cursed Chimo the Catalan. “I left my loaf in the privy!” He moved hastily toward the door.
Gasquet’s lieutenant, Donat Faur, wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. “You took your breakfast to the shitter?” Chimo shrugged. “Really?” Donat was not squeamish, but imagining that made him feel queasy for a second.
“I was hungry.” Chimo sounded both defiant and abashed. “I still am.”
“Get it. Quickly. You’re supposed to be guarding the door.”
“Okay, okay,” Chimo called as he started down the stairs. “It’s just out back. Not like anyone can come in the building and get up the stairs without me seeing.”
“Just hurry up!” Donat shook his head. “Manel?”
The quieter of the two Catalans looked up. “You want me to watch the door until he comes back?”
“Yes.”
“I was cleaning a gun in the workspace.” He glanced toward the small, draped-off area to which they had moved all their weapons and the work table that shielded them from the roof’s many leaks. Manel waited for a reply, wearing his typical hangdog look.
Christ in a whorehouse, are they all dullards? “Well, then go get it and bring it out here. Just be ready to hide it if someone comes.”
Manel nodded, rose, and disappeared behind the drapes. “No one ever comes,” he added softly.
Donat rolled his eyes, went into the small, curtained area that was Gasquet’s room and office, the only place in the attic with a window that provided enough daylight to read comfortably. Only he and Gasquet had learned their letters, and Donat tried to improve his by reading over the messages their handler left in a window box languishing in the perpetual gloom behind L’Anguille Vernie.
Beyond the workspace drapery, Donat heard a thump and a sound like a small cascade of marbles. Now what? “Manel, what the devil did you—?”
“The balls for the pistols. I knocked them over.”
“Well, leave them be. Watch the door.” Donat muttered, after which he devoted himself fully to deciphering the tightly packed script with which their handler had covered a small sheet of paper.
* * *
Baudet Lamy retreated backward toward the door of the largest ground floor apartment. Although a landlord of some means, he was careful not to antagonize his better tenants, and the widow Coton was one such. Her lawyer husband dead (probably slain by the barbed darts launched by her tongue) and her only child carried off by fever some years later, she was alone in the world and as miserly a soul as had ever wanted redemption. And if her current indignant temper was any measure, her soul wanted redemption more than most.
“I do not know what they are doing up there!” she hissed so loudly that Baudet wondered why she did not just shout it. “But they are moving heavy objects and up at all hours! And constantly coming and going, keeping no schedule appropriate to tradesmen.”
Baudet raised his hands in an attempt at humble placation. “They may not be fully settled in their livelihood, Madame Coton. Indeed, they may not be tradesmen at all, but common laborers, attracted by the new businesses that the pope’s visit has spawned. They may be stockmen, working at all hours, according to the needs or whims of their employers.”
The widow Coton drew up to her full, desiccated height and tried to stare down her nose at him, despite being half a foot shorter. “That is not my concern. Their hours are irregular, their ha
bits repulsive, and their use of the latrine vile. I am not even sure they avail themselves of chamber pots, so often can they be found inconveniencing the rest of us by occupying the privy for extended periods. It is probably a result of their irregular hours and constant shuffling and banging: it would put any normal person off their digestion, of that I am quite certain.”
I can think of another tenant’s behavior far more likely to curdle the contents of my stomach, you old prune. “Madame, I shall go upstairs and inquire as to their habits and if they might show more consideration to their fellow tenants.”
Widow Coton’s expression became sly. “You do that, Monsieur Lamy, and while you’re at it, you might count just how many tenants there are in that apartment.”
Lamy forgot about Madame Coton’s vinegary personality and expression. “You mean—their number has increased since they occupied their rooms?”
Madame Coton shrugged histrionically. “I am an old woman, with failing eyes. But I have seen new faces coming and going. Just yesterday, in fact. I would not be surprised if their numbers have increased in the past two weeks.”
Baudet Lamy straightened. Now, this was serious. “I thank you, Madame Coton. I shall attend to the matter at once.”
Her smile was a horrible thing to see. “I am sure you will.” Her voice was a reedy, cynical coo.
Lamy opened the door to the hall, hearing the rear door to the privy close as he stepped out.
“There goes one of them now,” Madame Coton hissed archly. “Did you not hear him come down the stairs?”
Ears like a bat and a face to match; no wonder Monsieur Coton had died an early death. “I did not. I was entirely focused on your concerns. Which I shall now address.” He closed the door with a bow and walked briskly toward the stairs. If her observations were accurate, it was time to set things right, both in terms of the behavior and the additional rent he had a right to expect from the occupants of the attic.
However, he reflected as he began to climb the stairs, they were all ready and rugged men. It would not do to antagonize them. But after all, there was no need of that. Rooms were at a premium in le Boucle. If they refused to comply with his terms, he could simply shrug and point out that the town council had empowered select men of the watch and militia to intervene in the case of squatters. And then he would leave and let them stew in their own juices.
