by Eric Flint
Finan shrugged. “Because I watched him carrying it for weeks. You might recall, ma’am, that before I was attached to you, I was Colonel Thomas North’s batman during the lively dance we were all doing in Italy, last summer. The first time I met Felix, he was cleaning this gun, right after the Wrecking Crew tidied up the Spanish who almost killed your Da and the others near Chiavenna. Feck, I can even tell you why he carved some of these notches into the stock.”
Finan may have seen the persistent look of disbelief on Sharon’s face. “I suppose it sounds strange, that we’d have such personal attachments to our weapons, ma’am. But just as a workman labels his tools, well, you might say a favorite weapon becomes part of a soldier’s identity. The way lords and ladies are distinguished by their rings and jewelry or heirlooms of one kind or t’other.”
Sharon opened her mouth, and for a moment, the words would not come. “But Felix was killed in Rome, during the trap they laid for you when you tried to rescue Frank and Giovanna Stone from the Insula Mattei.”
Finan nodded solemnly. “So whatever hand was at work there may very well be at work here, ma’am.”
Which would explain much, Sharon thought. If the same shadowy figure who had been behind destroying half of the Wrecking Crew, and behind the attack on the pope in Molino, had been running the assassination attempt here in Besançon, he would have had advance knowledge of the security forces: their equipment, their capabilities, their methods, and above all, their commanders. He would have studied his prey as carefully, as thoroughly, as relentlessly as he had obviously studied the Wrecking Crew and the rest of his adversaries in Italy.
As Sharon continued to study the gun and its copy, and thought back to the other copy she had seen on the bloodstained floorboards of the flat that Ruy and Hastings had cleared just yesterday, she realized: Five killed, between the flat and the one stabbed—left-handed—in the street. So five dead and one other who remains missing. She glanced back at the bedrolls. Six bedrolls, or, to put it another way, five plus one.
Sharon blinked. My god; he’s one of them! He killed his own man in the street! Killed de Requesens too, but the reason for that is less clear. But this much is certain: he’s still at large.
He was no longer a danger, of course. He had been waiting for an opportunity to strike and instead, was now presumably in hiding. But then, where were the forces which were to have attacked the palace, and moreover, how could anyone do that with less than a company of well-armed men? Between the palace’s own defenses, and the snipers and reaction forces in all the churches, a frontal assault would be sheer suicide. Unless—
What if it isn’t a frontal assault? But that would mean getting inside, somehow. And no one was going to be allowed into the palace except the colloquium’s participants and members of the papal retinue, including Urban’s own pontifical guards. Meaning the Wild Geese. And soon, the Swiss, too—
The Swiss—
Sharon felt her stomach churn sharply. The Swiss. Only a few of them are well-known. Everyone has dismissed the majority of them like a pack of well-meaning, mangy puppies come to fawn around Urban’s ankles. But what if they—?
Sharon sprinted for the stairs. “Finan! The pope!”
“Eh—what?” the Irishman called after her, trailing as quickly as his legs allowed.
“Just follow me. And keep your gun ready!”
Chapter 38
Norwin and another of the Swiss were the first to go through the double doors of Palais Granvelle. Gasquet resented the entry order but could hardly argue with it; the Swiss were both known faces and voices, and as such, were essential to ensuring that the guards remained complacent. Feeling naked without any weapon other than a rusty old dagger from some long-dead Pontifical guardsman, the Occitan went over the threshold with a greater sense of unease, of being a pawn in the palm of Fate, than he could remember ever having experienced.
Gasquet almost paused as he entered; the entry hall was gargantuan. A short, wide staircase went up to the left and led toward the receiving hall. Beyond that was the still larger great hall in which the colloquium had been held and in which the attendees were apparently being served a luncheon banquet. Trays and salvers, both covered and open, were being carried up those stairs by a steady stream of servants.
Across the entry hall and to the right was a split staircase with a wide landing. It was hung with papal banners and had three large chairs at its center. Probably the point from which Urban planned to accept their service. Gasquet suppressed a bitter smirk. Typical: all set up so that the riffraff didn’t get any farther than the first room. Assuming they were allowed in the front door at all.
The defenders near the entry were Burgundians, as the report from Norwin’s handler had indicated. Farther into the palace, however, they wouldn’t see any of the local troops: only Wild Geese and the occasional Hibernian, the latter probably carrying messages or performing some other errand between the two groups.
Gasquet glanced quickly at the Burgundians as he walked into his prearranged place just behind the point of the wedge that would form up with Norwin at its head. They were marginally more alert than the soldiers he’d seen in the streets for months and were armed well enough for a military unit. But their swords were too long if they had to fight in narrow spaces, and those few who carried pistols were armed only with wheel-locks. One shot was all any of them would get. Their armor was an irregular collection of mismatched pieces and old leather gambesons. Like most rear echelon troops of the polyglot armies that had been chasing each other back and forth across Europe—but mostly Germany—for the past decade, their equipment was provided out of a fluctuating stockpile of outdated or captured materiel. And it showed.
Gasquet wondered if he’d been wrong instructing his men to go for the Burgundians first. They hardly looked worth the bother. But against his unarmored men, they were still dangerous, so since they were more vulnerable to the shrapnel from the pipe bomb, and would be more likely slain or broken outright by a first wave of fire, they remained the first targets. And if any of them ran, that might break the morale of the others while, conversely, boosting that of his own men.
Which might be exactly the boost they’d need, Gasquet reflected, turning his gaze surreptitiously upon the half dozen Wild Geese at the entrance to the receiving hall atop the left-hand staircase. Sturdy buff coats under cuirasses, lobster-tailed steel helmets, heavy swords, and pepperbox revolvers made them look even more dangerous than their professional, swaggerless demeanor. These were troops who had nothing to prove to anyone, least of all themselves. And they had the equipment and training to be steady in the face of a sneak attack and still return as good as they got. At least.
Behind him, the last of his faux-Swiss henchmen took their places in the wedge shape they had decided to adopt. One Burgundian yawned; two others snickered behind their hands. Two of the Wild Geese looked at the group, then noticed three servants taking covered trays toward the landing on the split stairs on the right, rather than toward the receiving hall on the left. Frowning, the tallest of the two headed toward them.
* * *
Danny O’Dee fell in step behind Turlough Eubank, who, as Sergeant de Campo, was the highest ranking officer of the Wild Geese after Owen Rowe O’Neill himself.
Eubank held up a hand to stop the first in a file of three servers. “Hold on, fellows. Don’t those have to go to the great hall?”
The lead server shrugged as expressively as his burden would allow. “This is for the new—er, Swiss Guards, yes? For after the ceremony?” He looked toward the landing.
Eubank was frowning as Danny came to stand alongside him. “On whose orders? I’ve heard naught a word of this.”
Another shrug. “I suppose the pope himself? I just do as I am told.”
Eubank and Danny glanced back as the kitchen doors opened again. Almost a dozen servers filed out, angling toward the low staircase that led up to the receiving hall. “So many more dishes for the banquet, too? We had w
ord it was almost over.”
The little besontsint started sagging under the weight of his covered tray. “I do not doubt you, monsieur. But I am not informed of such things. I am just told to carry, serve, and fetch.”
Eubank glanced from one group of servers to the next, nodded the fellow about his business, leaned toward Danny. “O’Dempsey, you go back and find Art McCarew. He’ll be nursemaiding the pope with Jimmy MacDonald. Make sure His Holiness did in true order this new mess of victuals, and that the kitchen staff hasn’t made a steaming melder of it.”
“Right y’are, Sergeant.” And Danny O’Dee was off at a trot.
* * *
Sharon Nichols was not a gifted sprinter but, she reflected as she arrived breathless at the steps of St. Peter’s, today was probably her personal best.
The sergeant in charge of the watchpoint—Kuhlman, if she remembered correctly—reached out toward her as if she might collapse. “Ambassador! What is—?”
“Watch…that house,” Sharon gasped, pointing back at the flophouse. “Don’t let…anyone…in there.”
“Ambassador, why—?”
“Just do it. The assassins—the basement.”
“Assassins in the basement?”
Sharon shook her head. “No assassins…there now. But…they could be…in the palace.”
Kuhlman blinked, looked around as if he expected black-cloaked cutthroats streaming out of every window along the length of the street. “But Your Excellency, we’ve been watching. We’ve seen no danger to the palace.”
Sharon gritted her teeth, panted through them. “Swiss,” she tried to gasp out, but it sounded as if she was trying to imitate a snake while wheezing.
* * *
Klaus Müller glanced at Huc, who was strolling about ten yards ahead of him. Like Klaus, he was dressed as a tradesman, a sack carried over one shoulder. And every so often, he stared up at the tops of the taller buildings, let his eyes linger for a fraction of a second longer on the high windows that ran the length of the northwest wall of the Palais Granvelle.
Klaus envied Huc his easy, relaxed stroll. This kind of playacting was not to his own liking; he preferred a straight up fight. And yet, here he was, assigned to the one task—the one task—which probably would not involve any fighting at all. All because he had a strong and accurate throwing arm. Which made him feel a little better in light of his self-comparison to Huc: Klaus was a bit taller and broader, and definitely the stronger of the two. On the other hand, he reflected irritably, Huc was the more athletic; whatever he might lack in raw strength, he was likely to make up for in efficient form and motion.
Again, Huc glanced up at the sequence of palace windows, and Klaus suddenly realized, with a panicked chill, that he had once again forgotten which windows communicated with the entry hall, the reception hall, and the great hall respectively. Did the entry hall have just one window, or was it two? Or was the second window the one that was supposed to overlook the landing on the split staircase? Or was that where the receiving hall started?
Klaus realized that he had started walking faster, and that Huc had noticed and was changing his own course to be more divergent from the Swiss’s own.
Damn it, he’s scared I’m going to give him—us!—away. Norwin should never have put me out here. I’m a fighter not a—a bomb-thrower! And he knows, knows, that I have a hard time remembering…well, things.
Things like which window goes to what room.
* * *
Danny O’Dee wondered when he’d see his Ma and Da next, so he could tell them that he, he, was the point guard for Pope Urban!
Oh, sure an’ it was only a seventy-foot walk from the main entry of the council chamber, through the receiving hall, to the foyer. But the pope himself had smiled at Danny when the young Irishman approached and asked about both the new luncheon courses and the food for the Swiss. “Well, let’s go and find out,” were the words the earthly saint had spoken and then gestured that Daniel O’Dempsey should take the lead in the bodyguard triangle that would protect him during those seventy feet.
No matter that there was nothing to protect him from. The pope had chosen Daniel Q. O’Dempsey to lead and now—poor bog-hopper’s son that he was—he could almost feel the holy breath on the back of his neck. So what if it came with a faint hint of garlic and nerves? It was the breath of a pope!
Turlough met them halfway across the receiving hall. “Your Holiness, I’m sorry to be troublin’ yeh, but did you order food for the Swiss? And another course for the guests of the colloquium?”
Urban waved a blithe hand. “I did not, but I am grateful to whoever had the presence of mind to do both.”
“Er…of course, Your Holiness, but we just want to be sure that everything is, well, as safe as can be.”
Urban smiled. “I suspect a few more treats shall not be the death of us, Sergeant. And those Swiss fellows always strike me as being a few meals short of health.”
Eubank’s expression took on that square-jawed tightness that Danny O’Dee had seen often enough, and it meant one of two things: either he was digging his heels in against stupid orders from an officer, or about to put one of those same heels in the arse of a slacker recruit. “Your Holiness,” Eubank restarted, his voice a register lower, “I am very sorry to continue to trouble you on this point, but I must insist—”
“Holy Father!” The shout came from the man at the head of the Swiss, who had remained in their wedge shaped formation, awaiting Urban. “We thank you, and, poor as we are, would honor you in the only way we may—with our voices!”
Ah, fer Chrissakes, thought Danny O’Dee, the buggers are going to sing? Please Lord; anything but that.
* * *
Sharon straightened up, drawing in great wracking breaths—okay, having lost weight is not enough; I have to exercise more!—and lifted an arm to point at the palace. But as she did, her attention was drawn to one of the tradesmen walking near it. He seemed, well, twitchy somehow, like he wasn’t at home in his own skin. And now that she watched more closely, he seemed to be veering to stay close to another tradesman. The second fellow’s own gait and demeanor were not noteworthy in any way, but he did share one unusual behavior with the other: they were both stealing quick glances up at the second floor of the Palais Granvelle, or at its high windows.
Sharon started walking in the direction of the palace. “Finan.”
“Ma’am?”
“What do you make of that?” she said, pointing.
“Er…the tradesman, Your Excellency? Or the two, I guess? Both from out of town, maybe, staring at the big buildings. It happens, you know.”
“Hastings is at this station, isn’t he?”
“Yes’m.”
“Get him now. Right now.”
And she started walking out into the street, her breathlessness forgotten. She heard Finan’s feet thumping away. “Watch officer?” she shouted behind her.
“Ma’am?”
“I need you and your men to follow me.”
“But Ambassador, those two fellows are just—well, now that you mention it—”
“They could be assassins,” she said. And then, in the hope of startling the Hibernians into action, she repeated herself so loudly that it was almost a shout: “Assassins.”
* * *
Above the irregular noise of the midday bustle on Besançon’s main street, Klaus heard a woman’s voice asserting, rather than shouting, “Assassins.” He looked around quickly but realized a moment later that that had probably been the worst thing he could have done: people stared at his reaction.
Huc uttered a low oath and sprang forward, his backpack coming off in a single smooth sweep. But, but—what could Huc do? No one was singing yet! How could he possibly know which window—?
And then, again too late by a second, Klaus understood: Huc was going to throw the bomb through the middle window. Gasquet had mentioned something about this when they’d been going over the plan just before starting out for the p
alace. If, by some chance, the street team was spotted, the best odds were to put the bomb through the windows into the receiving hall. It was uncertain that the pope would come all the way out into the foyer, and even if he did, a lot of his guards and support staff would probably be lingering back near the great hall, near the rest of the dignitaries.
After touching the pipe bomb’s fuse to a long-burning match Huc had kept curled in a pierced tin container, he pulled the bagged explosive out of his satchel, and swung it around his head. Two leaping steps forward as the bomb spun and then he let it fly—a beautiful arc, Klaus had to admit as the smoke-trailing bag flew up toward the fourth window.
The window I’ll put mine through as well, thought Klaus as he pulled the smoke bomb out of his own satchel.
* * *
Even as Norwin lifted his chin to start the Dies Irae—which annoyed Gasquet, because the three chairs on the landing all but assured them that Urban would actually come out to the foyer for the induction—there was a change in the faint street noise that leaked in through the closed door and the small, street level windows: an indecipherable shout, which seemed to spawn others. Something was going on out there, and Gasquet had a bad feeling about what it might be. So, yes, the receiving hall and the Dies Irae were the right choice, after all.
There were some surprisingly good voices amongst his own men—odd: cutthroats who could have been choir boys—and the low, somber melody of the hymn was just right for the collection of baritones and basses that had come to kill the pope.
“Dies irae—” Gasquet smiled: it was an appropriate song for massacring the wealthy, sanctimonious bastards who had spit on him, his family, and kept taking and taking what they had until there was nothing left to take. Yes, the day of wrath indeed.
“—dies illa.”
The first bomb crashed through the middle window of the receiving hall with a triumphant shattering of glass. And Gasquet thought:
