by Eric Flint
As, indeed, Don Vincente had taken time to think. "Sergeant Ezquerra," he called. "Extend to line of four ranks."
Ezquerra gave his captain an odd look, as did Lieutenant Rojas as he came from his proper position in the rear of the company. Six ranks was considered to be the shallowest that gunners could be ranked, giving each rank time to reload while the others took their turn to shoot. Don Vincente knew that he was taking a chance, but he suspected that reloading would not be an issue today. In any event with the new light muskets and the drill he had had the men engage in, he was seeing nearly two shots a minute from many of his men, and three shots every two minutes from all of them. Despite the doubt written in their faces, Ezquerra and Rojas began ordering the men into the required ranks as they fanned out in to the piazza.
"Front rank, level arms!" Ezquerra bellowed, not waiting for the order. Don Vincente stole a glance, and saw that true to form the man was leaning on his halberd even as he readied the men for action. To the company's front, no more than thirty yards away, the nearest members of the crowd had shifted from stupefied curiosity at the interruption to their afternoon's entertainment sounding off at their city's notables, and were now looking nervous. More than nervous, in fact.
Don Vincente crossed himself, kissed the rosary he wore at his belt, and offered a silent prayer that the threat would be enough. Honorable deeds on the field of battle were all very well, and there was loot to hope for there besides. Giving fire, twenty-five muskets at a time, into a piazza crowded with civilians, was most definitely not what he had followed His Most Catholic Majesty's colors for.
"Why do you not give the order to fire?" The voice came from behind him. Gonzalez had come back.
He paused a moment before turning to address the pompous littlemost holy inquisitor. "Because, good Father, we must permit some little time for the crowd to realize the error of their ways and repent."
He hoped that putting it that way would get the wretched priest off his back. For a man supposedly forbidden the profession of arms, Father Gonzalez was a bloodthirsty little bastard. And doubtless he was a bastard in all ways that counted. Not even the most loving of mothers would wish to be associated with the squinty-eyed little runt. The man managed to be as scrawny as a gypsy's donkey while still having the piggy little eyes and puffy face of a glutton long since run to seed. Those eyes were unsettlingly close together and the straggly hair around the priestly tonsure made the effect more that of a rabid polecat than anything which might one day be something as useful as a ham.
Don Vincente's belly rumbled at the thought of ham. This fiasco had come hard on the heels of morning drill and he, and all his men, were missing lunch.
Gonzalez appeared to consider Don Vincente's words for a moment. While the crab-ridden priest was dithering, Don Vincente decided to dispense with good manners and returned his regard to the crowd. The initial shuffle away from the soldiers had ended with the near edge of the crowd some ten yards farther away, at the edge of practical musket range although the balls would still have killing force at that distance. There was an ugly murmur now coming from them instead of the roar of protest they had been making before.
The near edge of the crowd seemed to roil like a simmering stockpot as the fainter spirits retired into the safety of numbers and the bolder souls came forward to glare at the soldiers. Some of them looked like they were weighing the odds, and Don Vincente hoped hell there weren't enough experienced soldiers among them to come to the correct conclusion. Outnumbering the soldiers who faced them more than four to one, if the crowd charged with any real spirit, they would run over the company like a wave over beach sand, with only a few losses. Don Vincente began to regret that he had been so vigorous in arranging that his men should drill and train. Had he not been in possession of the only company mustered and equipped today, he might have escaped having to do this. And the risk of seeing his command come to a messy end.
Movement beside him caught his eye. When he saw what it was, he groaned aloud. Gonzalez was striding forward, in that stupid ass-out, leaning forward waddle he had among his only-slightly-less irritating characteristics, and hectoring the crowd. Worse, the man wasn't even bothering to address them in their native tongue, but was haranguing them in Spanish.
Another groan, this one very loud and theatrical, came from Sergeant Ezquerra.
As Gonzalez was winding up to "-and there is a place appointed for you, a place of torment and, and, and"-and otherwise becoming too excited to speak properly, Don Vincente realized that he had to act quickly. If he held fire to keep the odious little ti- the most holy inquisitor from getting hurt, he would give the more militant members of the crowd ample time to overrun his company and then dismember the inquisitor at their leisure, proving that it was an ill wind that blew no one any good. Don Vincente considered simply drawing his pistol and shooting the man down in mid expostulation, but even though that would save his men from the suggestion that they had killed the priest, it would not solve the current problem. There was nothing else for it.
"Lieutenant! Be ready to give the command for a front rank volley," he shouted, and strode out to grab the ranting idiot and haul him bodily out of the line of fire.
"And did not Saint Paul say-what?" Gonzalez halted in mid-diatribe as Don Vincente seized him by the shoulder.
"Time to go, Father." Don Vincente was unable to keep the nasty tone out of his voice. "My men are about to begin shooting."
"They are?" Father Gonzalez looked around. "They are." He turned his back on the crowd. "As you can see, Captain, there was no point waiting. They have not dispersed, no matter the exhortation. Too steeped in Sin."
Don Vincente took Gonzalez by the elbow and began to lead him to one side, much as one would an elderly and rather confused relative. The crowd was still tense, not coming closer to the guns, but the nearer members were watching them intently. Don Vincente could smell the crowd, the unwashed clothes, the smells of cheap cooking and cheaper drink and the nervous sweat of people who have realized that the situation has escalated. More than one had a billet of wood, a knife, or some other simple weapon. Quite enough to deal with a company of musketeers at three or four to one odds.
The front rows of the crowd now consisted entirely of men, the women having filtered away to the back. That would be a load off the conscience, at least. There was precious little to be proud of in firing into a crowd of civilians, but at least there would be no women hurt.
He got Father Gonzalez back to the edge of the square. It was a standoff, now. The crowd was hushed and murmuring their discontent. There was no movement toward his men, but likewise no movement to disperse. Had there been just one more company, preferably a pike company, present to assist, there would be no problem. A volley into the air, and the pikes would advance and the crowd would have to run away. A volley into the air now would achieve nothing. A few faint hearts would run, but the rest would know that that meant a quarter of the musketeers were unloaded.
Something was needed to break the moment. Don Vincente very slowly and deliberately drew his saber, and held it, low and loose by his side. Several of the people in the crowd were watching him, not the musketeers. He began looking for eye contact, staring hard at each man in turn.
Suddenly, with hardly even time for the eye to register it, there was a surge from behind the crowd. Some of the men at the front nearest Don Vincente staggered forward a few paces as the people behind pushed into them, but did not come any closer than that. Some of them were nervously looking behind them, and those not directly in the front row were facing away from the musketeers and craning their necks, some on tiptoes, to see what was going on.
"Captain?" Lieutenant Rojas called.
"A moment!" Don Vincente called back. He could just about see over the heads of the crowd and-yes! there seemed to be some mounted troops. There were some local mercenaries who were a cavalry outfit who might well have been turned out as well for this business; Don Vincente did not recall hearing of a
ny Spanish cavalry arriving in Naples. There was no sound of screaming, yet. If the moment was to be broken, now was the time. "Lieutenant! Prepare to fire!"
The front rank of musketeers leveled their weapons in cadence with the shouted commands of the cabos. They awaited Don Vincente's command.
Lord God Almighty, forgive me this Behind the crowd, the cavalry were forcing their way into the square. They seemed to be just using the weight of their horses, but the sounds of shouting could be heard, and it was surely only a matter of time before someone was hurt. Don Vincente raised his sword, the reflection from the blade scattering sunlight across the faces of the crowd. One or two of them flinched.
He dared to breathe again after a moment, when some of the crowd began filtering away. Between the musketeers here and the cavalry there, many of the Neapolitans present were beginning to feel less enthusiastic about protest than they had only a few minutes ago. And there were several routes out of the square, none of which were blocked.
And then the screams started. Oh, shit -the thought was followed swiftly by the realization that the crowd was about to surge toward his men. Without taking further thought, he flashed his sword down.
As the powder-smoke and ball belched out and the crowd began falling and dying and milling and running and trampling its weaker members underfoot, Don Vincente looked on, numbly listening to his NCOs and Lieutenant Rojas barking the orders for the continuing volleys that flayed and hammered the nearest face of the crowd and drove the survivors away to the other exits. He told himself, over and over, that it had been the only action he could take. That not to act would have seen all his men dead. That the cavalry had been sent to the other side of the square had been sheerest bad luck. That surely it had been the hand of the Devil that caused some poor soul to be trampled by a horse at just that moment.
It was over in minutes. Any thought the crowd might have had of escaping through Don Vincente's company died under the constant hail of bullets, each volley more ragged than the last as men reloaded at different rates. Any thought that they might have resisted died as the cavalry brought their sabers in to play. Some few might have had the courage and the will to stand, but they were tossed on a storm of panic. The shooting had prevented them acting as a coherent mob, and had turned them into a crowd of frightened individuals. An ounce of leadership and they would have torn the soldiers apart, but that ounce was lacking.
When the crowd had cleared, the ground was littered with bodies. Don Vincente's men had, between them, discharged perhaps three hundred rounds. Many-most, even-would have done little damage. Missed, or done no more than cause a mild scratch. Of the ones that remained, a musket ball two-thirds of an inch wide did terrible injury to flesh. The cavalry had accounted for far fewer, the horsemen being limited to what was within reach of their arms. But for those first few seconds, the first fifty or so bullets, the crowd had been packed tight together, twenty yards away at their nearest. And at that range, a musket ball is accurate and deadly. Some would have wounded two or more. There was a ring of bodies around Don Vincente, and all of them seemed to accuse him of murder.
"Most commendable," Father Gonzales said, a note of warm approval in his voice.
Slowly, carefully, not making any sudden movements, Don Vincente Jose-Maria Castro y Papas sheathed his sword without turning on the priest and hacking him into bloody hunks of tainted flesh. It was, he found, the hardest thing he had ever done in his life.
PART THREE
April 1635
Chapter 13
Rome
The mid-morning sun was making the paperwork on Sharon's desk glow in a way that was getting close to inducing eyestrain. Most of it was tedious stuff, but while she would have been happy to delegate, Adolf was not very good at accepting delegation. Preparing drafts for her approval or signature was as close as he was prepared to get. She wondered whether she should just start signing things without reading them-approvals of accounts, bread-and-butter correspondence with the embassy's suppliers and responses to invitations. Nothing earth-shattering. That gave her a slightly guilty start, though, and to be fair to her chief of staff he did manage to whittle the admin down to, on the worst days, about an hour. She sighed, and reflected that if she'd ever actually qualified as a nurse back up-time she'd have had more paperwork than this to reckon with.
The state papers, the copies of the intelligence briefings that had come in via radio over night and from the few USE agents in Rome who actually reported direct to the embassy via various channels, had been brief today. The twenty minutes of interest they generated hadn't been enough to sustain Sharon through an uncommonly large stack of, well, crap.
There had been a couple more near-riots. Nasty things were being said in Rome's tavernas about the way that second one had been handled. More than one informant had heard rumors that the slaughter had been deliberate, rather than the result of outrageous stupidity.
And rent-a-mobs were turning up elsewhere as well. Information on those was starting to trickle in as well, and whoever was organizing them-three different descriptions so far-was claiming to be either with the Committee of Correspondence or the Sons of Joe Buckley, a group apparently devoted to avenging Buckley's death at the hands of the Inquisition. That had caused Sharon a moment of grim amusement. The man who had almost certainly murdered poor Joe had, at the time, been a member in good standing of the Venice Committee of Correspondence. If they were a real group-and so far no one could say for certain that there wasn't a genuine protest or two happening among the hired demonstrations-then they were wildly misguided.
And, of course, the references to the Committee were bringing exasperated notes from Magdeburg, notes that had Don Francisco's style all over them. Sharon had sent back that she had Frank's personal assurance that he had nothing to do with the disturbances. Even if Frank had wanted to engage in that kind of shenanigans, he didn't have the cash, with his restaurant-cum-social club not yet breaking even, let alone turning a profit. Whoever was running these sideshows was spending money like water to get groups of several dozen out to each event, gathered in knots of half a dozen or so from across Rome. That suggested that there were whole teams of agitators at work, although there would be bound to be a few genuinely aggrieved folks joining in the fun by now.
She realized with a guilty start that she was woolgathering, and not getting through the day's paperwork. She was just signing the last letter when Ruy came in, not bothering to knock, and grinning with his usual swagger. He was, of course, indecently cheerful in the mornings, alert before his first coffee and usually up an hour before Sharon to perform a vigorous workout with the Marines in the embassy's ballroom. He was more-or-less fully recovered from the surgery Sharon had performed on him the year before, and determined to get, and stay, in shape. As his doctor, Sharon wholeheartedly approved, of course. And as an unexpected benefit, he was taking the embassy's Marine guard in sword drill, being as proficient with the saber as he was with his usual rapier. The sight of fit soldiers in their twenties emerging red-faced and blowing from a training session with a man old enough to be their father was entertainment all by itself, and apparently Ruy relished it.
"Good training session, you old goat?"
Ruy stroked his mustachios. "Excellent. The woeful lack of stamina of the youth of today was once again made manifest to my entire satisfaction. Although I will say that one or two of them show promising signs of future accomplishment in la destreza, Sharon. The Scots and Germans are hardy and courageous breeds. Once schooled in finesse and good footwork they have every promise of being fine swordsmen. I declare myself pleased with my new pupils."
"Well, try not to break any of them while you do it. I have enough paperwork as it is," she said, ringing the bell on her desk. Adolf came in and took the finished work away for dispatch to its various destinations, and reminded her she had an appointment with representatives of Rome's College of Physicians later that afternoon.
"Anything in particular you wanted
to talk about, Ruy?" she said, stretching in her chair now that Adolf had gone.
"Indeed, Dona Ambassadora." Ruy's face was still cheerful, but he had assumed a position of attention by her desk. She noticed he had a letter in his hand.
She sat up straight. "In my official capacity? And you're carrying a letter? May I presume you've heard from Alfonso?"
"I have, indeed. His response was as we both predicted, once one disregards the feeble attempts at wit and pallid attempts at invective and sarcasm."
Sharon raised an eyebrow. Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz had served many years as first retainer to the marquis of Bedmar, and later as gentiluomo to the cardinal Bedmar. She'd seen the close relationship the two had, marked as it was by constant mockery and barbed insults, while Ruy had first been convalescing under her care in Venice. "I seem to recall a certain short fat cardinal who gave as good as he got from a certain uppity Catalan ruffian," she said.
"Faugh," Ruy waved the criticism away. "What can a woman know of such manly pursuits as persiflage and insult? Besides, the fellow is Andalusian, so what can he possibly know of proper wordplay? The import of his message is that he bids me remain in touch, but recognizes that a man should be with his wife and being there, make himself useful. Once we disregard the vile calumny that I never made myself useful in his service, it seems uncommonly gracious for the canting little bullfrog."
"Miss him, don't you?" Sharon realized she was getting quite good at seeing through the front Ruy kept up.
He sighed. "Indeed I do. It takes years of friendship to learn what an insufferable, gluttonous prick Alfonso can be. But the winds of war and the tides of politics mean we must needs insult each other at one remove for the nonce. Somehow, it is not the same." Another sigh.