1635 The Papal Stakes (73 page)

“So, the plan is clear?”

Mumbled assent drowned out Virgilio’s loud, nervous gulp. “Don Estuban, this journey could be worse than the Alps.”

“Not for us. But for Harry—”

Harry shrugged. “Ah, this shouldn’t be so bad. Anyhow, I do think I am properly equipped for the job.” He patted his homemade web-gear, from which hung eight carefully handcrafted and slightly curved magazine pouches. “Eight thirty-round mags of Combloc 7.62 should do me just fine.”

“I wouldn’t mind having a few of those myself,” muttered Turlough.

Miro smiled. “A point you have made several times, already. But they must stay with Harry. After all, he will be in a position to save your life, not you his.”

The Irishman smiled crookedly. “Well now, if you’re putting it that way…”

Aurelio was still frowning down at the map. “So after the rescue is complete, our ships do not stay together?”

“No. And I understand your reservations. Normally, there would be safety in numbers. But remember this: the largest of our ships cannot successfully fight theirs. Our advantages will be our head start, our speed in the wind conditions we expect—”

“—and base trickery,” interrupted Connal; now even fretful Aurelio smiled. Miro suppressed a grateful sigh. From the very start, the Irish physician had proven as adept at raising spirits as he had at healing bodies, and both had been invaluable to the morale of the men. They might respect Miro, and hold Harry, North, and O’Neill in a kind of terrified reverence, but it was the young Sean Connal that they loved. Miro nodded at Aurelio, getting his attention once again. “Just follow the headings you’ve been given once we are on the run, Captain. First we’ll confuse the Spanish, then we’ll link up and make for home.”

“Very well. Now, on the approach, it is the
Atropos
that leads us in?”

“Yes, but only to your loiter point, well south of Palma’s bay. As indicated on the map, the
Atropos
will head farther west, leaving the rest of you to stay formed up on the
Guerra Cagna
until you begin to flee. Now, one last time: any more questions?” Silence. “Very well. Virgilio, are the burners at full?”

“Yes, Don Estuban. The crew of the
Atropos
signals that inflation of the balloon has begun.”

“Are you sure you want to ride her on the way in? We have others who could now perform so simple a task as keeping her in true while being towed.”

Virgilio shook his head. “She is my airship; I will be at her controls. And will be sure to supervise the correct loading sequence of the fuel casks. I don’t want any of the gasoline containers mixed in with the regular fuel. I want all that gasoline reserved for our outbound flight. And I don’t want to start loading until the last second: we must keep the dirigible as light as we can, as long as we can, to conserve fuel.”

“We’ve given you a pretty good margin of error, Virge,” drawled Harry at the nervous Venetian dirigible pilot.

“Yes, I have a good margin of error—but Fate usually eats it up. Particularly when she is tempted to do so by plans as audacious as this one.” He shuddered. “So I will be a miser with the fuel, if it is all right with you, Captain Lefferts.”

Harry shrugged, smiled. “Okay by me, Virge. Hell, I’m just along for the ride. Well, most of the ways. Which reminds me, Estuban; I double-checked the suspension lines and the wires for the airship’s communications relay rig. We’re good to go on my end.”

“And I have checked the telegraph in the dirigible,” added Virgilio quickly.

Harry frowned. “Well, if you really want to call what we’ve got a telegraph set, I guess you can, but—”

Miro held up his hand. “What I have just heard is that the suspension lines and the electric wiring we have secured to it are confirmed as fully functional, yes?”

The two men nodded.

“Excellent. Then we are ready. Aurelio, please have your men break down the tent. I will take the map back to the
Atropos
with me. Good luck to you all.” He walked outside, glancing about at the flurry of activity: the tent being broken down, the last wind measurements being taken, and the captains moving purposefully to the small boats that would take them back to their ships, waiting dark and quiet beyond the low breakers.

Miro stepped toward the skiff from the
Atropos
, and nodded to the waiting rowers. “Let’s be on our way,” he said, as much to himself as them.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Linguanti rose to meet Valentino. “So, it is as we thought?”

Valentino nodded, came to the center of the dimly lit cave, and nodded for the man with the oil lamp to adjust the wick. The yellow glow brightened as Valentino scraped a quick map on the floor. “Yes, they are at the Villa Molini. We have seen their sentries—cleverly hidden—here, here, and here.” He indicated the three compass points of north, east and west. “They may have one or two more that we missed.”

“Probably behind them, to the west, too.”

Valentino shook his head at Odoardo’s suggestion. “No. They are shielded from the west by Monte Maggio. The only other way into the dell in which the villa sits—this very difficult pass from the Valle Terragnolo, up north—is where they might have another outpost. But for anyone to come at them that way, they would have had to travel by way of the Val Adige, almost all the way to Trento. And almost none of the news from this valley is going to pass over these high mountains to the other side, and vice versa. So no one on the Trento side of Monte Maggio would even know to come here, looking. So the up-timers and the pope can rest assured that their west is almost completely safe. And with their backs being up against that wall, we have no ready way to get around their pickets and come at them from behind.”

“So what do we do?”

Valentino touched the point on the map that indicated his group’s current position in the southernmost of the caves of Monte Cengio. “At dusk tonight, we start moving southeast, skirting Menara. Then, when we come to the low part of this arm of the valley, we turn west immediately, staying as far from Laghi as possible.”

Linguanti looked at the map. “That puts us well within a mile of Molini. An easy walk.”

“It would be, if the approaches weren’t observed.”

“So I ask again; what do we do?”

“We stay away from the most direct route, which they can observe from two points: the outpost they have just to the side of the path that leads to the villa, and the outpost they keep up north, on the western slopes of Monte Cengio. Instead, we will move across the path to the south, and sneak up on this small hill.”

“Where they have an outpost, also.”

“True, but we can get behind that outpost.”

“So once we are behind them, then what?”

“We bait them out.”

Odoardo guffawed. “What a great plan. If, as you suspect, they have a good number of professional troops, we’re not going to be able to bait them out into the open.”

“Of course not, oaf. We will be far more subtle. We will make faint noises to the front of their position. Nothing too provocative, but enough to get them to send out a scout. We will lead him on and, ultimately, into an ambush.”

“Which the others see, or hear, and set up an alarm.”

“No, because they will be dead by then.”

“How?”

Valentino smiled. “I wasted part of my misspent youth hunting. But I was not very good with a bow, and we didn’t have enough money for gunpowder. So I became quite proficient with this—” He reached back into his gear and pulled out the crossbow that all the men had noticed, commented upon, and apparently forgotten about. “These days,” he pontificated, “the crossbow is an underappreciated weapon. What it lacks in killing power it more than makes up for in silence. And that is how we will eliminate the others in the south watch-post: one by crossbow, and the last by Linguanti, here.”

“Oh? And what weapon does he carry?”

“Just this,” said Linguanti, who produced a very thin garrote with lethal fluidity.

“And how will you get close enough to use it?”

“Odoardo, think back—if you can remember anything earlier than a minute ago—and ask yourself: have you ever heard me utter so many words as these?”

“No.”

“And have you ever heard me make a sound when I move, or walk, at all?”

“Uh…no.”

“Neither will the last sentry.”

“Oh.”

Valentino smiled and finished. “And once we are done here”—he drew an X through the southern outpost—“the way is clear to the villa, except for walking patrols.”

“Which will see us and shoot.”

“Not if we wait and pass through the gap in their intervals. And if they do happen to see us and shoot, we will shoot back. Some of us will be killed, but at this point, with all our force concentrated in one place, and with us charging over the flat ground to the south of the villa, we will be upon them quickly. Meaning we will only have the interior guards to deal with. With our numbers, we will finish them quickly—as well as everyone else in the villa. And I mean everyone.”

Odoardo was frowning. “This still isn’t as easy as you said it was going to be when you hired us, Valentino. A pope, a few priests, no more than a dozen up-timers and their retainers. This is a bigger job. More dangerous.”

Valentino smiled. “You are welcome to depart now, Odoardo.” Valentino straightened up. “Anyone is. After all, the fewer of us there are, the fewer ways there are to split the payment.
Reales
equal to a year’s pay for Spain’s best three thousand man tercio. So I thought a slightly difficult job would be good news, Odoardo. After all, are you—are any of you—eager to have your share reduced by having
too many
men alive to collect?”

Valentino watched the eyes of his hired murderers rove cautiously about, doing the bloody math of how many men were needed for the job, how many men might die, and how to balance between maximizing the odds of success with the minimum number of final survivors. He saw greed—growing—and no fear. Which was exactly what he wanted to see.

“We heavily outnumber them, we have the advantage of surprise, and we will strike at night. My only concern is that you don’t get tempted to stick a knife in your mate’s back, in order to get a bigger share for yourself.”

Odoardo was still frowning. “There’s only one thing that surprises me about this plan, now.”

“And what is that?”

The huge man suddenly smiled. “That I like it.” He stood. “Let’s go kill a pope.”

Cardinal Antonio Barberini started when Sharon and Ruy emerged from the further shadows of the Garden Room a moment after he started laying out his pens and parchment. “Ambassadora, Don Ruy, I did not see you—”

“You were not supposed to, Your Eminence,” murmured Ruy. “Not until we knew you had entered alone.”

“What? Why do you—?”

“Your Eminence,” interrupted Sharon, “what I need to ask you is not something I want to share with the others.”

“Why? What is it?”

Ruy and Sharon approached Antonio. He did not feel fear, exactly, but a vague sense of dread at the gravity in their expressions.

“We need to ask you to gather some information for us, Your Eminence. Nothing improper, but not the kind of request we can make to any of your peers.”

“And what kind of information could you possibly want that you do not already have? You have heard all the proceedings as well as I have.”

“Yes, but we lack a critical perspective on them.”

Antonio Barberini frowned. “I assure you, I have no special
sub rosa
knowledge relevant to the proceedings.”

Ruy raised a conciliatory hand. “No, of course not, Your Eminence. But you may make inquiries where we—indeed, where no one else—may.”

Antonio shrugged. “It is strange you should think so; I am the only one who has no juridical role in the process. Mazzare and Wadding are advocates, Vitelleschi is the procedural judge, and my uncle listens. I simply take notes.”

“Yes, of course, Your Eminence—which is why you are the person of whom we must ask our questions. You are an intimate of the court, yet not intimately involved in its official deliberations.”

“Ah, now I see. Since I am the court’s nonentity, you do not violate the propriety of the hearings by asking questions of me.” Barberini smiled crookedly at Ruy. “Your diplomatic courtesy is impeccable, if somewhat depressing for me to hear. We all cherish loftier opinions of our importance than those warranted by our actual roles, I fear.”

Sharon smiled. “I’m sorry we have to go about it this way, Your Eminence. But we have no choice; everyone’s safety is at stake.”

Antonio felt anxious heat across his brow. “How may I help?”

Sharon set her shoulders before asking: “I need to know if your uncle thinks he’s going to decide to seek asylum with the USE or not.”

Antonio laughed. “Again, I suspect your guess is better than mine. And guess is all any of us can do, for I assure you, my uncle has said no more about our proceedings outside of this room than he has said within it.”

Sharon shrugged. “Well, for what it’s worth coming from me, I think your uncle was wise to avoid taking a direct hand in the proceedings. But even so, he is a party to them, and that makes it impossible for us to ask if they’ve led him to any decisions, yet. After all, since we’re personal friends with Cardinal Mazzare, that would be like asking, ‘Hey, Your Holiness, how’s our guy doing in the debate? Is he winning?’”

Antonio returned the smile. “Yes, I see your point. So you are speaking to me in the hope that I might whisper some favorable words in my uncle’s ear?”

Sharon shook her head. “I thought about that, but realized that even if you did consent to say something on our behalf, that would probably just hurt our cause. We’d be doing exactly what Cardinal Wadding is worried that Gustav or his representatives might do: try to meddle in Church affairs. So, no: that isn’t why we want to talk with you now. We just want to know what to prepare for.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, after tonight’s closing statements, your uncle is going to make up his mind pretty quickly. If he says ‘yup, I’m going to seek protection from the USE,’ we know how to proceed. But if he doesn’t—well, that creates difficulties.”