1635 The Papal Stakes (8 page)

“Counting the agent they sent into the
crotto
to keep any eye on you, there were five men following you. So they had you outnumbered. Had they wanted, they could have eliminated one or more of your guards during a night ambush and finished the job on a subsequent day. No, Cardinal, they want us, too. Dead or alive, perhaps, but I suspect they’d prefer alive. We’d be much more useful—and informative—that way.” She raised her head, breathed deeply, and accelerated her flagging stride again. “No, we are all in this together. And that means you and I have to step lively, Your Eminence, because escape is our only acceptable option.”

James nodded. “And so far, luck is with us.”

Tom couldn’t figure that one out. “Seems today the only luck we’ve had has been bad.”

“Look, Tom: if the local garrison back in Chiavenna were seasoned pros, they’d have caught up with us by now. Sure, our trail ended at the Mera, but they must know we didn’t head west; to do that, we’d have had to double back past the
crotto
itself. And what for? To go straight up a big-ass mountain, through pine forests and toward god knows what? That’s not a bad plan; it’s no plan at all.

“And I doubt it took them more than ten minutes to figure out that we hadn’t crossed to the other side of the Mera; we’d have been seen going over the bridges. Besides, that’s the more densely populated side of town: lots of well-trafficked piazzas. Where we don’t exactly blend in. Particularly me. And certainly not when we’re running for our lives.

“So ten, maybe fifteen minutes after they found your cloak, they would know that we either fled to the north or the south. So maybe they had to split up into two search parties, but any way you slice it, we’re lucky we’ve gotten this far without any sign of—”

Over the stony roar of the plummeting Acquafraggia, Tom thought he heard a faint
prapf!—
and the next moment, he felt a burning stripe across his left buttoc
k. Damn it,
he thought as he staggered, more from the pain than the grazing rush of the musket ball fired at long range,
hit in the ass again?

Grinning because he could still find humor in the situation, Tom did not fall, thanks to the ready hand of Matthias, their geekish down-time radio operator. Who asked solicitously, “Can you travel, Herr Kapitan?”

Tom nodded, saw Matthias’ relieved smile—and then another musket ball went neatly into the down-timer’s right temple. It came out above his left ear in an eruption of bone and brains at the same moment that the weapon’s report reached them. Which meant that some of their pursuers were much closer than they had thought.

“Run!” Tom shouted at the top of his lungs. “Everyone!
Now!
”

On the one hand, Miro was glad for the tail wind out of the north. Keeping a good distance from the alp known as the Tscharnoz to the west, Franchetti was catching at least seven miles per hour of free forward speed. That made it possible to throttle back the four, thirty-horse-power up-time mower engines propelling the dirigible, and thereby, save a considerable amount of fuel.

The downside of this situation was that it put Miro, along with two thirds of the passengers, downwind of the motors. Along with the burner, these engines left little doubt as to the origins of their fuel.

“Damn,” said Sherrilyn, wrinkling her nose. “Smells like a dead sheep. Being cremated in its own rotting fat.”

“Yeah, a sheep that died eating codfish,” Harry expanded.

“Who washed it down with the nastiest rotgut ever brewed from Satan’s own piss,” added Juliet, with a punctuating shriek of disgust and despair.

Donald Ohde shrugged. “Ah…I’ve smelled worse, I have.” They all looked at him. “Can’t think where, though.”

“Matija’s drawers,” Felix sneered.

“Your obsession with my drawers—and their contents—is ungodly, you sodomite.”

Gerd, not to be left out, looked up, sleepy-eyed as ever. “Get a room, you two,” he advised. Then he sent a questioning glance toward the up-timers of the Crew. “I think that line is from a movie we have seen,
ja?
”

George Sutherland, one arm around his wife, the other gesturing grandly at the white-fanged Alps surrounding them, exclaimed. “It’s a fine day to be flying, here over the very roof of the world, with all my friends.” He sucked in a great lungful of the noxious fumes. “And so refreshing, too.”

Miro wondered if the banter ever—ever—stopped. Sometimes, it abated, but rarely and not for long. It seemed to be an essential part of the social glue that held the Wrecking Crew together. Which, he supposed, made it a good thing. But he was outside of it, just as he was outside of their circle.

Franchetti shouted at Miro over his shoulder. “Don Estuban, look ahead.” He cocked his head toward the horizon. “Do you see it? The Lai di Marmorera?”

Miro squinted. A smooth curve of deep ultramarine nestled between close-set mountains some miles ahead. He pointed at it over Franchetti’s shoulder. “In that valley, you mean?” Frankly, it wasn’t a valley so much as it was a flat-bottomed gorge.

“
Si
; we head there. Then south to the Septimer Pass. We have gone more than half the way. Almost two-thirds.”

Harry had come to stand alongside Miro. “What are we looking at?”

Miro pointed again. “The Lai di Marmorera. Beyond that lies Bivio and the Septimer Pass.”

“Lake Marmorera?” Harry’s brow wrinkled, one eyebrow shot up, and in that moment, Miro saw why the young rogue had so scored so many amorous victories across the Continent in the past two years. “I thought we were going over something called…eh, the Marmelsee.”

“Same thing,” shouted Miro. “The names change from language to language up here. French, German, Italian. Some rarer languages, too. And dialects mixing them all together.”

“Chaos,” pronounced Harry. Then with a smile, she said, “Sounds like my kind of place.”

Thomas North peered out through the trees; two primitive carts creaked over a low rise to the east and were lost to sight. He waited a moment, then waved the first squad forward. The men advanced just beyond the edge of the tree line but stayed well within its lengthening shadow. No sign of reaction from the outskirts of Soglio, which was upslope to the north. Behind them, less than thirty yards to the south, was the Mera. Pine-lined at this point in its course, it chattered over rocks down toward the next town: Castagena.

“It’s fortunate we’re moving so close to dusk. Easy to stay hidden, this way.”

North turned to looked up at the very tall, very broad-shouldered Hastings. “Fortunate for movement, perhaps. Hardly ideal for a rendezvous, though. You have the crossbow ready?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the signal bolts?”

Hastings nodded and watched as the first squad started trotting down slope, slipping beneath the sleeping brows of Soglio. “Shall we follow, sir?”

North, chewing his lower lip lightly, nodded. “Pass the word: weapons out, but no firing except at my orders. We’ve only got two miles left; let’s not cock it up by having someone mistake a squirrel for a Spaniard.”

North, up-time 9mm automatic in his right hand, signaled with his left to the second squad. Along with him, they emerged from the black shadows of the woods into the gray shadows beyond its margin and moved quietly down the hill after their comrades.

The approach of hooves told Tom Simpson that he had been right to remain behind and lie in wait; if he didn’t slow the Spanish down here, they would overtake the group within the hour. Now, if only he could keep his separation from the others from becoming truly permanent…

Tom eased open both frizzens of the double-barreled fowling piece that, in any self-respecting Western, would have been called a “coach-gun” and checked the powder in the pans. It was still dry, despite the mists generated by the cataract thirty yards farther along the track to the east. Working around to his right, which was also the upslope side of the immense tree that he was sheltered behind, Tom leaned out for a quick peek.

Four horsemen, coming in a one-two-one sequence. Not as dispersed as bred-to-the-saddle cavalrymen would have been, the two in the middle were all but riding abreast. But the arrangement did suggest the competent training that was the norm among Spanish troops, which these were, judging from their helmets.

Tom leaned back behind the tree—no sudden motion now—and took a deep breath. He had been in several memorable gunfights over the past few years. The most recent involved shooting his way out of the Castel Sant’Angelo while rescuing the pope. However, this time he was alone and heavily outnumbered. As the first horseman drew abreast of his position, lazily riding point toward the dull thunder of the alpine cataract, Tom took consolation from the fact that the noise muffled other sounds like a great blanket. This, along with the shadows in which Tom was hidden, amplified the efficacy of his one great advantage: surprise.

Timing the approach of the next two riders by recalling their separation from, and projecting back from the current position of, the first, Tom now leaned slowly around the down-slope side of the tree. The Spanish riders, about twelve yards away, did not see him. He counted through two more seconds, brought his weapon up slowly, waited for the pair to reach a range of about eight yards. When they did, he aimed low, and squeezed the first trigger.

The weapon sounded like a small cannon going off. The far horse, the one on the right-hand side of the road, caught the great mass of the shot in its chest. The creature screamed, went down frontwards, spilling the rider roughly onto the road. The second horse, hit by two, maybe three, balls in the breast and the foreleg, staggered then reared desperately.

Aiming slightly higher, Tom squeezed the other trigger.

The second blast did not seem as loud, probably because he expected it. This charge of shot caught the same, stricken horse in the side as it was wheeling in panic, its rider hauling at the reins in an attempt to control it. The ribcage of the animal rippled under a spatter of bloody eruptions; a similar splatter of red appeared between the rider’s hip and kidney. Together, man and beast fell sideways.

Tom did not see them hit the ground. Dropping the shotgun, he leaned back behind the immense tree-trunk and snatched up his waiting cap-and-ball revolver. His back covered against fire from the rearmost rider, he drew a two-handed bead on the point-man, who had pulled his mount around and had his wheel-lock pistol already in hand, looking for the source of the attack.

Tom fired, resteadied, fired, resteadied. Just before he triggered off a third shot, he saw that he had hit the target with his second bullet: the rider flinched as a dull red puff momentarily obscured his right clavicle. Probably aiming at Tom’s muzzle flash, he discharged his own weapon in unison with Tom’s third shot.

Which cut through the Spaniard’s diaphragm and dumped him out of his saddle; his return shot hummed into the upslope forest to Tom’s left, snapping twigs as it went.

A moment later, Tom heard the report of another wheel lock. He simultaneously felt and heard a thump deep in the tree behind him. No time to waste.

Tom leaned around the darker, upslope side of the tree, drew a bead on the last horseman, who had already yanked a second pistol from his saddle-brace. Tom fired; the Spaniard fired. They both missed. The horseman reached for his next pistol; Tom fired again. Another miss—but it grazed the horse’s flank, causing the creature to rear and the rider to consider the rate of fire he was obviously facing. He pulled his mount around and sped back the way he had come, riding low and forward in the saddle.

Rather than waste a shot, Tom ran into the road, pistol up and ready. The first rider who had gone down was dead: the open eyes, staring almost straight back over his shoulder, bore witness to his snapped neck. The lead rider—the third Tom had shot—was not moving, nor was he making any noise audible over the perpetual rumble of the cataract. Although neither of the point-man’s wounds had been instantly fatal, the odds were good that his fall from the horse inflicted a concussion. Which was a lucky bit of mercy, since the gut wound inflicted by Tom’s third bullet promised a long and miserable death.

But the second rider Tom had shot, the one who had gone down sideways with his mount, was pinned under his dead horse, groaning and bleeding heavily.

Tom approached, then stopped. For a long second, he could not form any thought other than
this is not how it’s supposed to end. This wasn’t part of the plan. They were supposed to die. Or, if I was unlucky, flee. But not this.

The Spaniard had evidently heard Tom’s movement; he struggled to turn his head, to see who might be coming. That attempt to turn had evidently required a reflexive twisting of the lower back: the cavalryman screamed in agony.

That shook Tom out of his stupor. He reached the wounded man in two long strides. Careful not to look him in the eyes, the up-timer snugged his revolver’s barrel under the soldier’s chin and pulled the trigger.

Tom did not hear the report; did not stop to look at the body; did not remember clambering up the slope and on to the game trail by which he had doubled back to set up this ambush. Up until now, he’d always felt like a soldier. Now…he tried not to think of himself as a murderer.

The complement in the gondola had grown very quiet. Alps this big, when seen close up, were no longer scenic, were no longer even majestic: they were ominous gargantuas. The figure in the hooded clerical robe stood very still at the rear of the gondola, watching the towering monsters slide slowly past.

Angling to enter the north of the Sur Valley from the east, Franchetti had swept around the Piz d’Err with about one thousand yards to spare, and well under the level of its 11,080 foot peak. But as he drew closer to the Marmelsee, he seemed to be struggling to maintain a steady course.

“What’s wrong?” Miro shouted above the engines.

“Nothing, Don Estuban.”

“Virgilio—”

“Well, the air currents are—are hard to predict here. The drafts around these mountains, they can speed up very quickly.”