1635 The Papal Stakes (76 page)

Virgilio snapped an order at the Wild Geese, who dutifully tilted two empty oil containers over the side and into the lightless waters below. “Turlough, tell me as soon as we need more fuel for the engines,” he said with a nod of thanks. “We need to shift to gasoline soon. Doctor, if you would please man the telegraph; we need to coordinate our flight with the
Atropos
so we get the most power from her towing.” It was not a difficult task for a pilot as experienced as Virgilio when he had a clear view of the ship pulling him. But once they ascended into the clouds, once they lost sight of their comrades below, they would have to accomplish the same objective flying by instruments and feel alone.

Miro looked over the side at the boats again—and with a feathery fluttering of gray vapor, they were gone. The crew of the dirigible fell silent as they forged ahead into what looked like the mists of Limbo.

Thomas North looked toward the head of the column: the local guide had stopped, and his men were crouching low, in the surrounding bushes. They were in the higher reaches of the valley just to the south of Bellver, just before its walls began pinching tightly together into a gully known as the Mal Pas. The men stood out slightly against the sun-bleached sandstone that was increasingly poking through the dark scrub growth.

Thomas tapped the two rearmost of the group—Hibernians—on their shoulders: “Rearguard,” he muttered as he walked forward. They dutifully flanked well off to either side of the trail, crouching low into the scrub brush shadows, looking back down toward the dark bay.

As North arrived at the head of the column, the
llaut
’s master and current guide nodded to a crevice in the sedimentary rock. “Here,” he said. “This is the cave.”

Thomas nodded and looked around more carefully, mentally removing the undergrowth: yes, they were in an old quarry. “And you have scouted the tunnel?”

“My cousin did, three days ago. It is all clear. They have either forgotten or ignored it. After all, there is no way to open the door up into Bellver from our side. And except for the ancestors of the
xuetas
who were impressed to build this place, probably no one knows their way through the tunnels, anymore.”

“Very well. We will travel with three bull’s-eye lanterns: one at the front, one in the middle, one at the rear.”

“Colonel, there are parts where only one man may pass at a time.”

“Very well: single file. Stay close to the man in front of you.” North checked his manual up-time watch, admiring the phosphorescent dot as it marched on its stiff, sixty-stepped circle around the miniature clock-face. “Let’s not be late to our own party.”

CHAPTER FIFTY

In the top room of the Castell de Bellver’s lazarette, Frank watched his wife squirm in discomfort as Asher arrived, escorted in by guards. As usual, the medium-sized assistant followed the doctor closely, the larger, broad-shouldered one bringing up the rear with the more cumbersome boxes and paraphernalia.

As Asher’s smaller assistant began setting up a folding trestle table and laying out implements, the doctor asked, “Now, are the pains regular or—?”

“Oh! Ow!” Gia exclaimed.

“Ah…irregular,” Asher concluded as his assistants finished raising the sheets that would be used as a modesty blind.

Dakis emerged from the staircase that led down to the fortified walkway joining the lazarette to Bellver’s roof. “So, what’s wrong, Jew?”

“I won’t know until I examine the woman,” Asher snapped, “which is not helped by having three—now four—guards in the room.”

“Just do your work. If you actually have any work to do.”

Gia writhed as Asher turned away to look at Dakis. “And what does that mean, señor?”

“It means that I wonder if she really has any problems with her pregnancy or if they are all feigned.”

“You suspect this is all just theatrics?”

“I suspect that this is a conspiracy.”

“A conspiracy?” gulped Frank before he could shut his mouth or govern his panicked tone. “What for?”

Dakis stared at Frank, assessing. “Why to trick us, of course.” He finished sizing Frank up and seemed to come to the relieving, if depressing, conclusion that the up-timer was too guileless and too overtly surprised to warrant suspicion. “Well, perhaps you aren’t in on it, but your wife might be.” Dakis darted a dark look at her and Asher. “I know fraud when I smell it. The Jew is getting a fat fee every time he comes up here, and charges us for all these pure spirits he claims will keep wounds clean and prevent infection. Probably a lie to justify the outrageous bills he tenders for the cost of his materials. And he’s probably splitting the take with your wife, his accomplice.” Dakis glared at Frank again. “But maybe you are in on it, after all: you certainly look nervous.”

“I look nervous? Really?” answered Frank. “I can’t think why—what with a doctor hovering over my pregnant wife, holding a knife, three months before she’s due.”

Dakis scowled, then blanched; Asher’s hands had come from behind the sheets and were covered in blood. “Perhaps this is all part of our theatrics, señor?”

Dakis uttered an inaudible profanity and, crossing his arms, leaned his back against the inner wall of the lazarette. “Get on with it,” he growled.

Asher glanced at his medium-sized assistant. “Fetch me more of the ethanol, quickly.”

Virgilio angled the props to give a slight downward boost—and suddenly they were under the clouds again, with the xebec visible below and slightly ahead of them. Off to the right, watch lights showed where Palma slumbered at the far end of the bay to the north.

“Very well, we continue on our own, from here,” announced Miro. “Dr. Connal, signal the
Atropos
that they are to release us. Aurelio is to signal the other boats to head south to their pre-chase loiter positions before he continues west at best speed. After you send the message, reel in the line quickly. Harry, are you ready?”

“Almost. Lemme double-check that my gear is attached good and tight.”

“Virgilio, we have to be in the clouds again before you call for another burn; we can’t show a flame any more.”

“Yes, I know, Don Estuban. I will need more fuel for the engines now. Make it the best we have.”

Miro turned to Turlough Eubank. “Gasoline into the engines, please. And since you will be otherwise occupied shortly, please fill the tanks to the brim, this time.”

“Aye, just as you say, Don Estuban. Do I pitch the container if it’s empty?”

Miro thought. “No, not any more. It’s only a few pounds. We can keep the weight until we no longer have need of stealth.”

Virgilio made a noise that suggested he would have answered Eubank differently. Miro smiled, turned to Connal, and saw the end of the main tow-line come up into his palm from over the side of the gondola; the wires protruding from the end of the narrow up-time electric cord attached to it were faint copper wisps. Connal handed it to Harry, who was waiting for it.

“Do you need help?” asked Miro. He had asked Harry this every time they had run the drill in preparation for this moment; Harry had never admitted needing assistance, and indeed, seemed not to.

But this time Harry said, “Sure, Estuban. Double-check each connection, will you?”

Miro agreed, tugged on and inspected each point where Harry had fastened the tow-line to his harness with D-rings. Then Miro took the device to which Lefferts had attached the wire-ends, which looked like nothing so much as a scissor with a spring resistor against easy closing. “The electrical connections look good, Harry.” He handed back the odd scissors. “Test the handset.”

Harry clicked through three long contacts, then a long-short-long combination.
Dah-dah-dah, dah-dit-dah
chattered the receiver nestled between Doc Connal’s knees. He looked up and smiled, “‘OK’ indeed, Harry.”

Lefferts nodded. “Then let’s do this.” He swung a leg over the edge of the gondola. “You have all the slack reeled in, Doc?”

“I do. Remember, we can let you down a lot more quickly than we can pull you up.”

“Ain’t that the terrifying truth.”

“And remember: you have extra cable coiled in five one-foot spools at the first harness attachment point; you can give yourself a little more drop if you need it, Harry.”

“Doc, you’re starting to sound like my momma. Anything else?”

Miro simply nodded. “Godspeed, Harry.”

He nodded back and swung his other leg over the side of the gondola. “Well, guys, it’s been a slice.” He turned slowly until he faced back toward the center of the airship, keeping his weight on his arms. He smiled, and said, “Geronimo!” And he let go—gradually.

Harry did not fall, but eased down into a position where he dangled four feet beneath the gondola; a smaler cable—just a cord, really—was attached lower on his back, which helped to stabilize him against spinning or tumbling.

“How are you, Harry?” Miro called down.

“I’m good to go,” came the up-timer’s reply, faint over the hum of the throttled-back engines. “Let’s stop dawdling.”

Miro smiled. “As you wish. Virgilio, can we get back into the cloud bank with engines?”

“Maybe,” answered the pilot, “but a quick burst from the burner would be a great help. You can use the burn-shield to conceal most of it.”

Miro turned back to Eubank again. “Do it,” he said.

The Irishman, moving nimbly despite his cuirass, produced three pieces of thin tin plate and inserted them vertically in slots fixed along each side of the burner, leaving only the southern, seaward side uncovered. The panels had an excessive stove-piping effect, and had a slight tendency to overconcentrate the hot air flow up into the envelope, but they also reduced the visibility of the burner’s flare considerably.

Eubank engaged the burner briefly; the airship climbed back toward the irregular gray fleece overhead.

Miro came to stand alongside his pilot. “We are on instruments only, now, Virgilio, so keep me apprised of wind direction and velocity. I will need that to revise our bearings if we are being pushed off course.”

“Ah, Harry can always put us back on track,” Virgilio pointed out as he throttled the engines back even more.

“I heard that,” Lefferts’ voice announced from ten feet below. “Just don’t go too low, okay?”

“We will not, so long as you tell us what we need to do in order to keep you just below the clouds, and us just above.”

“Count on it,” the up-timer drawled. “Give me a little more slack; the top of the balloon is up in the clouds already.”

Miro looked up; Harry was right. “Ten more feet of slack, please, Doctor.”

Connal nodded. “Down you go, Harry,” he said as he played out the line.

And then suddenly, they were encased in cool gray cotton again.

The tunnel had grown progressively narrower but now rewidened, opening into an irregular oval chamber with a low ceiling and detritus scattered about its dusty floor: ill-cut paving stones, half a belt, a forlorn and ragged shoe. In the shifting light of the lanterns, the men’s bodies threw monstrous shadows on the wall.

The master of the
llaut
—ghostly from the gray-pink dust of the mining tunnels through which they had entered—pointed toward what Thomas guessed was the north end of the chamber. “We are here,” he said quietly.

North squinted in that direction: stairs, leading up. They were not solid risers, but rather thin slabs of stone that had been set into grooves cut in the facing walls. They ascended toward a heavy-timbered, iron-bound trapdoor seven feet above them. North nodded, checked his up-time watch: they were on time—just. The summons could come at any time, now. “Weapons out,” he murmured. “Check your actions; make sure there’s no dust on or in them.”

“Rearguard, sir?” asked Donald Ohde.

“Perhaps, but I—”

From behind them came the distant sound of feet slapping down against a wet section of the cave floor. Thomas North swung up his weapon; half a dozen of his men followed suit. But listening more closely, the Englishman allowed that it might be water dripping down through the porous sandstone. They had seen plenty of evidence of that on the way in. They waited, guns ready, for almost a minute. The regular sounds ended as a hasty patter, then nothing: water, certainly. “Stand down,” muttered North.

“What was it, Colonel?”

“It was nothing, Hauer. Just water.”

“Or maybe the witch,” offered the master of the
llaut
, who suddenly discovered himself under the intense scrutiny of sixteen pairs of eyes belonging to heavily armed and already somewhat anxious men.

“I beg your pardon,” said North sweetly, “but maybe it was the
what
?”

“The witch,” repeated the master of the
llaut
. “
Na Joanna
. The one that inhabits these caves.”

One half of the group—including two of the three Wild Geese—stared about balefully.

In contrast, Donald Ohde was grinning and shaking his head. “There just had to be something.” He almost giggled. “There just had to be something we didn’t learn about or consider. But an attack by a witch? Now, that will be a story worth telling.”

“Yes,” North agreed, “it will be a story worth telling—to scare naughty children. Now let me make a few guesses.” He aimed his chin at the
xueta.
“First, the legends of this witch probably have to do with moaning on stormy nights, do they not?”

“Often, yes.”

“You mean the kind of moaning that occurs when wind is forced through a narrow ravine, like at the head of this valley?”

The
xueta
shrugged. “Yes.”

“And let me further conjecture that the witch’s nocturnal harrowings are proven by sudden health afflictions visited upon wandering children and occasional disappearances of goats, followed by the eventual discovery of their skeletal remains.”

“Yes.”

“The former of which is simply parental terror-tactics, while the latter would be consistent with the action of wild dogs, wild pigs, poachers, or all three. And last, I’m going to go out on a limb here and make the wild surmise that the witch was responsible for the deaths of untold workers at the mines and the quarries, correct?”