Eric Flint: 1635: The Cannon Law

"All wrong, yes," the pope said, closing the dead guardsman's eyes and crossing himself again after a briefly murmured prayer. Tom didn't know enough Latin to understand what he'd said.

"These men"-the pope gestured at the broken thing beside him, the brains leaking onto the ancient flagstones, the smells of shit and blood and piss reeking the man's death even over the stench of powder-smoke-"have pride that they die before I am taken. And Borja knows this. Signor Simpson, I have not learned enough English to say it well, but-"

Tom didn't have enough Italian-or, at least, not enough of that class of Italian-to follow all of it, but the sentiment was clear enough. He hoped that, wherever he was, Borja's ears were burning. And the pope was right. Borja's attempt to capture the pope was as good as a death sentence for all two hundred of these tough, wiry men from the Alps, no matter that they went to their deaths grinning savagely and determined to heap up the corpses of their attackers on the way.

Whatever else he had ordered today in Rome, Borja had ordered the murder of two hundred men who, Tom was sure, he would have gotten along with famously if he had met them elsewhere. His Episcopalianism notwithstanding, Tom couldn't help feeling that there might well be something to a church that had a man like this at its head. Sure, the fellow was a notorious crook when it came to money and nepotism, but still He sighed. "Your Holiness, let's get back under cover, please?"

The pope nodded, rose stiffly from his knees and moved back with Tom under the shelter of the wall. "I thank you, Signor Simpson. It seems that once again I am to be saved to continue God's work by the United States of Europe."

Tom grinned. "Any time, Your Holiness. It isn't like we can piss the Spanish off any more than we already did."

The pope smiled back. "This is true. But one Spaniard deserves to be pissed off a great deal, I think."

"You're picking up English idiom quite well, there, Your Holiness," Tom said, trying not to snigger like a schoolboy. The idea of priests swearing was kind of amusing. Hearing the pope do it was hysterical.

Tom was saved from bursting out laughing altogether by Ruy reappearing.

"What're we doing?" Tom asked.

"A diversion is arranged, and we should take cover while it comes to pass." Behind him the keep of the Castel Sant'Angelo seemed to explode as people-mostly men, but some women as well-began pouring out of the door and fanning out to head for the bastions and the various buildings under the walls.

Tom wondered about that for a second or two, and then a horrible thought presented itself. "What have you arranged as a diversion, Ruy?" he asked, with a horrible suspicion that he'd already worked it out.

"The good captain and I discussed it, and it seemed a shame that all that powder would be wasted for want of time to shoot it at the enemy. And it certainly makes for an excellent alternative to surrender, yes?"

"Ruy! That building is a fuckin' world historical monument! Are you out of your-" Tom stopped. "Yes, you are, aren't you?"

"Indeed. And I notice that you have followed me every step of the way, Senor Simpson." It was dark under the wall, and Tom could not see Ruy's face very clearly, but his imagination clearly supplied the grin. A great deal of humor with more than a tint of malicious glee.

"Please, what is the plan?" The pope was also eyeing the stream of people fleeing from the inner keep. Tom noticed also that there seemed to be rather fewer jets of fire from various windows, as the musketeers and arquebusiers fell silent.

"Your Holiness, this fortress will not be surrendered. Shortly, there will be a struggle on the walls as the defenders seek to escape. There will be an explosion, a mighty one although not, we think, sufficient to level the castle."

"You think?" Tom was dumbfounded. He'd picked up a little about up-time demolitions, enough to understand that it was a precision business that was done carefully and patiently with calculations to umpteen decimal places. Matters were certainly more rough-and-ready in the seventeenth century, but, still, there were limits.

"We were pressed for time," Ruy said, and Tom could see enough of his silhouette to see that he was shrugging.

"How did you persuade the Guard?" the pope asked. "I had understood that they would fight on here so that the enemy would not suspect-?"

He was switching back and forth between Italian and English in a single sentence. Tom found it surprisingly easy to follow. So long as he didn't switch to Spanish for Ruy's sake, because all Tom could remember how to say in that language was to explain that he no habla it.

Ruy shrugged again. "It was not hard. These men are proud that they are known for never surrendering, Your Holiness. But the Swiss are a practical folk, very hardheaded. I explained that the best manner in which to ensure that their mission was successful was create so much confusion that the Spaniards did not realize you were gone until it was too late. I promised on your behalf that word would be given when you reached a place of safety so that the survivors might rally to you. In fact, it was one of the lieutenants of the Guard who suggested evacuating the keep and firing the magazine."

"How are we getting out?" Tom asked, realizing that Ruy was being surprisingly reticent on this subject.

"Ah, now there we have a further trick to play." As he said it, four guardsmen ran up, each carrying a small keg under one arm and a bundle under the other. They headed straight for the barricade piled behind the river gate.

Tom put two and two together and realized that he wasn't going to like this, not one bit. He looked around himself. The wall they were sheltering under was the medieval inner ward, which was a square of four bastions connected by walls, under which an assortment of outbuildings and sheds had been constructed. The spare stonework of the later tourist-attraction castles was something that happened after the castle fell in to disuse. A working fortress needed all kinds of interior structures. Right in the middle of the inner ward was the cylindrical structure that had started as Hadrian's mausoleum and was now the fortified citadel of the papacy. So there was going to be an explosion there, and unless Tom missed his guess there was going to be an explosion next to the door right by them. As far as he could see, there was shelter from one, but not both.

The guardsmen came back from the barricade behind the river-wall gate, one of them trailing a stream of powder from the keg under his arm. The other three were pulling on plain clothes from the bundles they'd been carrying. Makes sense, Tom thought, that livery is kind of distinctive. Which didn't advance the matter at hand one whit.

"Ruy, we are screwed!" he yelled, over a sudden and thunderous cheering that seemed to come from every direction at once.

"Not yet, Tom. Not until I finally get to have my wedding night, at any rate."

"Jesus, Ruy," Tom said, suddenly wincing at the thought of blaspheming in front of the pope, who didn't actually seem to mind. "Where do we take cover?"

"There," the pope said, pointing along the wall. There was, maybe twenty yards away, a cluster of blocky stone buildings just under the bastion they'd come in over. "Grain houses. Very strong."

"See?" Ruy was grinning as he stood up in the firelight. "Did I, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, not say that the Almighty would provide? His personal vicar on earth shows us the way."

"Right," Tom said, grinning in spite of himself, "that's what I call service. "

The grain stores proved to be cool and, relative to the din outside, quiet. Ruy was with the guardsmen at the door doing something with the powder train. Inside, there were already a dozen or more civilians taking shelter, perched on the sacks of grain that lined the walls. Some, with more presence of mind, had found places where the bags were stacked like sandbags. A couple, junior priests from the looks, offered nervous grins when Tom led the pope in with them to crouch down.