1635 The Papal Stakes (39 page)

As she turned away, Ruy protested to the listening skies. “I am lost, utterly lost. My heart is owned by a cruel temptress who has no pity upon my desperate condition.”

Looking back, Sharon smiled. The sensuous curve of her lips seemed reprised in her shoulders, her arms, her hips, her bust. “So your condition is desperate?”

“Despite enduring a thousand battles and a hundred wounds, never have I been in more pain. I, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, swear that it is true.”

She raised her chin in a histrionic huff. “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls.” And with a twitch of her tail that matched her spurred mare’s, she moved farther ahead.

Smiling more broadly, Ruy spurred his own charger, keeping up with her. But he was careful not to draw abreast of, or pass, her. No, he must not pass her.

Because he liked the view from back here. Very, very much.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The room stank of chronically unwashed bodies and the proximity of Rome’s Jewish Ghetto, from which rubbish was removed infrequently. At best.

Tom watched Juliet finish her wine. She placed the sturdy flagon down upon the table and, despite her almost parodically curvy bulk, she belched demurely. Then she stood up and whistled, once, shrilly, followed by her cry of “Benito?”

From out of the milling crowd of young men in the front room, a tall gangly adolescent with a bad facial gash and missing one ear loped over. His face was a study of dedication bordering on adoration: “Yes, Signora Sutherland?”

“Time to send all the young bucks along to their billets now, lad. Get Giovanna’s relatives to help you.”

“Her brother Fabrizio, he’s here. But her cousin Dino is upstairs, fetching—you know, ‘him.’”

Thomas North smiled tightly.
Him, indeed.
But it was true enough that Harry’s fame in Rome was such that the mere mention of his name and rumor of his appearance could create problems. Fortunately, this was working in their favor, now. Since they had removed Wadding weeks ago, there had been an imaginary “Harry Lefferts sighting” almost every other day. The authorities had apparently pursued these rumors vigorously at first. Now, they simply ignored them. Which was good; although the returned Wrecking Crew took meticulous care not to interact or even be seen by locals, even at night, they could not afford a slip-up. Whoever worked for Borja was looking for them; no reason to help the bastard do his job.

Juliet was rolling her eyes over Benito’s report. “Yes, of course, Dino is spending an extra minute basking in the glow of the Great Man. So get Piero to help you, instead.”

“
Si,
Signora, we shall have the room clear in thirty seconds. No more.”

“You have them trained pretty well,” North observed when the youngster had left.

“No training required, Lord North.” Why she, alone of the Wrecking Crew, insisted on retaining the use of his title was beyond him. But he wasn’t going to attempt dissuading her. He had learned that Juliet Sutherland was not merely determined, she was a
force majeure
. In this case, her resolve was quiet, rather than loud and brash, but no less tenacious. She was probably going to call Thomas “Lord North” until the day he—or she—died.

“What do you mean, ‘no training required’?” North sipped at his well-watered wine.

“Well, I’m exaggerating a bit. But just a bit. The only boys who
will
do the work we require are poor. And the only ones who
can
do the work are not so poor that they’re too weak to watch, run, report. Which means I’ve been recruiting scamps who’ve already spent a few years watching houses and following people, working as lookouts for petty thieves, smugglers, pimps: you name it.”

“Sounds a savory crew.”

“Sounds a desperate crew,” replied Juliet with a touch of heat. “I’m familiar enough with their circumstances, m’lord. Grew up none too different, truth be told.”

“Sorry,” offered North.

“Ah, nothing to be sorry for, m’lord. I suppose these aren’t the kind of skills you ever had much cause to become familiar with, what with you taking your lessons by the hearth in the ancestral manse.”

“
Touché
,” North offered with a smile. “Although that doesn’t quite describe the circumstances of my youth. We had a great deal more title than money, and I was not the oldest son. Nor the favorite.”

“Probably why you don’t take on airs, then. Knew there was a reason I liked you. Not all quality is quality, if you take my meaning. But you are, right enough.”

North hardly knew what to say. “Thank you,” was what came out. It sounded ridiculous.

“Well, if you must thank me for something, you can express your appreciation for my expertise as a recruitrix of unsavory crews. Not things you learn in a book, of course, but on the street. You have to be able to tell the ones who are hungry from those who are desperate. Desperate waifs are no good to us; unfortunately, they’ll serve or sell anyone for a farthing because they don’t believe that anything good will last.

“You also have to be able to tell the ones who are just hard enough from the ones who don’t have enough hardness in ’em—they’ll freeze or bolt—and also from the ones who are
too
hard—they’ll sell you out or blackmail you, if they get the chance.”

“I wasn’t aware there were such nuances in the recruiting of children.”

“Well, why would you be? None of your own, and no interest in ’em.”

“Well, you don’t have any of your own. Although, given your interest, I’m rather surprised you don’t.”

“What? Me? Children? Christ on the gibbet, don’t even say the words!”

“But why not?”

“Why not? Why not? I should trade away all this”—she ran her hands down her formidable flanks—“for a bump and a babby? I’ve got a husband to keep, Lord North, which means a figure to keep as well.”

North tried not to goggle, or laugh, or sputter in bafflement. She seemed serious. “I hadn’t thought about that,” he managed to get out.

“I suppose not. But as I was saying, part of the trick of recruiting these lovable scuts is knowing the age at which they are no longer so lovable, and more scoundrel than scut.”

“And what age is that?”

“Varies by the child. Boys stay innocent longer, but get mean faster. It’s a tricky business, because the oldest are the most valuable, overall, but also the rarest. But we’re fortunate having access to the
lefferti
; they all have younger brothers who want nothing so much as to join those scurrilous ranks, themselves. And so, we let slip the implication that our
piccoli lefferti
will help us strike a blow against the Spanish bastards who killed one, more, or all of their family. And yes, it’s that bad, in some cases. So, before I’m done talking to the little fellows, they’re as loyal as puppies and can’t do enough to help us.” She sighed contentedly. “I’ve done my finest work here in Rome. ’S a pity it has to end, tomorrow or the next day.”

“What determines which day we start the final party?”

“When Frank and Giovanna’s guards give us the kind of incident that will allow us to stir up the local mobs.”

“And how can we even predict when such a thing might occur?”

“Predict? Lord North, I see you do not understand what it means to be a professional in my line of work. We are not waiting for a chance event. We are simply waiting for the right moment to make it happen. In a time and a place of our choosing.”

“Which is,” added the unmistakable voice of Harry Lefferts, “the key to our tactical successes: to always strike at a time and a place of our choosing. Which we are now ready to do.” Leading the way down the stairs, he was followed by the rest of the Wrecking Crew, the Wild Geese, and North’s four Hibernians. It was quite the parade, North conceded.

Harry took a seat next to Thomas, pulled out a chair obviously intended for John O’Neill, and let the rest file in and find places as they could.

“Okay,” said Harry, grinning from ear to ear, as the earl of Tyrone took his seat. “We’re done with preparation, and we’re done revising and refining the plan. So here it is.”

He unfolded a map of the target. Some of it boasted precise floor plans, some more was rather vague, and a whole lot of it was blank. “This is the
insula
Mattei: the palace complex belonging to the Mattei family. It is comprised of three separate parts. The good news is that this big sucker”—Harry ran his hand around the periphery of the immense quadrangle that dominated the center and eastern side of the map—“is not where Frank and Giovanna are being held. We don’t have the manpower to go room to room in the main palazzo, the Palazzo Giove Mattei. Even with complete surprise and all our firepower running nonstop, we’d still get nickel-and-dimed to death.”

Owen Roe O’Neill was frowning. “So the entirety of the
insula
has been taken over by the Spanish to house two hostages?”

Harry shrugged. “We don’t really know. Our intelligence on high-society isn’t too good. It could be that the Mattei family is on the outs with Borja, that some of their neighbors used the invasion as a pretext to settle some old scores and run them off, or they could be clustered up in the main Palazzo, giving the Spanish the run of the yard and keeping their heads down. Because so far, we haven’t seen anyone who answers to the descriptions of the Mattei clan in the whole place.”

“That’s kind of odd,” commented Sherrilyn.

“Given how smart the guy we’re playing against seems to be, maybe it’s not so much odd as it is inspired. He’s not letting anyone out to tell stories about what’s going on inside. No servants go shopping; no new ones come in. Food is delivered. The only domestics they let out are the water-bearers, who get what they need at the dolphin-fountain here”—Harry pointed to a small piazza just below the northwest corner of the map—“while under close guard.”

“So we haven’t had any inside reports at all?” Donald Ohde rubbed his chin and did not look happy.

“Not recent ones, but plenty of older ones.” Juliet leaned forward on dimpled elbows. “That’s how we got the floor plans. I learned which of the locals hereabout had worked in the
palazzi
over the years. Got ’em to talking about what it was like inside. Even got a few of them arguing over the details.”

“But has our observation given us a sense of patrol rosters? Duty stations?” Thomas tried to keep the worry out of his voice.

“Well, in a manner of speaking, yes, we do have information on that. And it’s some of the best news of all.”

“Oh?”

Harry smiled. “I think the Borja’s troops have bitten off a little more than they can chew. Our small army of casual, underage watchers agree with our older hands: the Spanish are playing the single-file repeating Indian trick all throughout the
insula
Mattei.”

“They’re playing what?” asked John O’Neill.

“It’s an old story from up-time,” Sherrilyn explained. “In order to make themselves look more numerous, one war-band of North American natives marched just beyond the edge of a ridge, all in one big circle, each one passing by the crest again and again. To the folks in the fort they had surrounded, it looked like there were thousands of Indians out in the hills, when in fact there were only a few hundred, at most.”

John nodded, understanding, but evidently not too pleased that the explanation had come from Sherrilyn. North couldn’t tell if the earl was disappointed because the story had not come from Golden Harry, or because O’Neill hated—hated—anything that reminded him that some members of the Wrecking Crew were female. Whatever the reason behind it, Sherrilyn saw John’s reaction, and clearly didn’t like it very much. She sat back, arms folded, and eyes hard.

“So,” the earl mused, “they’re short of men, given the size of the area they have to defend.”

“It sure looks like it,” drawled Harry. “We see the same guys too often, standing triple watches, moving from post to post. If you were just watching casually, it looks like there’s a fair amount of activity in the complex, but when you start following the faces, it turns out to be a sham. All of which is in line with what our informers close to Borja and his officers have told the
lefferti
.”

Juliet raised her chins. “Which also matches what my little darlings have reported in terms of food deliveries: far less than the apparent garrison would eat. Only about one third as much.”

“And from what I’ve seen through my binoculars,” added George, “most of them are not the top-notch Spanish troops.”

“How do you know?” asked Owen.

“Well, in part, their weapons. Philip’s best have genuine flintlock muskets, now. A lot have snaplocks; the rest have wheel locks or the better matchlocks. But most of the lads in this complex are still carrying arquebuses and matchlocks that came back from the New World with Columbus.

“And if they had enough troops, I’m pretty sure they’d use that big belvedere on top of the main palazzo as more than a sometimes-lookout.”

“What else should they use it for?” asked Sean Connal, genuinely perplexed.

“A strongpoint from which to defend all the roofs,” George responded.

Most of the Irish stared, more confused than before.

Harry stood. “See, it’s like this. All of these buildings are roofed, yeah? And some of them here on the north, and here on the west are pretty close to buildings on the opposite side of the street. Close enough that a group of attackers on these roofs over here”—he pointed to the roofs to the north of the complex—“could lay a ladder over the gap and cross to the roofs of the Palazzo Mattei. Now maybe I’m just paranoid, but I wouldn’t want to give my opponent free access to my roof. Particularly not if my opponent was as smart as, say—” Harry smiled “—Harry Lefferts.”

“Why am I beginning to suspect that we’re going to pull another roof job?” asked Matija sourly.

“Now, would I plan anything as crazy as that?”

“Of course you would, Harry. You’re you.”

“Well, so I am—but we’ll get to that later. For now, here’s the other lucky break we’re catching: Frank and Giovanna are being kept here, in this small palazzo just below the
insula’s
northwest corner. It’s called the Palazzo Giacomo. They’re in a room overlooking this combo entrance and courtyard, which does not communicate directly with any of the courtyards of the big palace. And we can see the windows of their rooms just fine from the roof of a three-story building near the gate into the Ghetto. Which means that we’ll have eyes, and a scoped weapon, on the primary area of operations at all times.”