1636_The Vatican Sanction

by Eric Flint

  But that might also have been a mark of Rombaldo’s canniness, recognizing that there was often more to be gained by remaining in the camp of a promising newcomer. It was the kind of bloodless decision that Dolor himself might have made in that situation, in the ruthless ascension to ever greater power.

  Admittedly, most of Rombaldo’s ruthlessness was of a more base nature. He was possessed by pleasures that Dolor deemed perverse. For the Bolognese, violence had not simply been a means to an end, but a way of life, and frequently, an aphrodisiac. At least Rombaldo had not preyed upon children. But he did prey upon their parents without remorse, and had to be reminded, on occasion, to spare children who had seen what they should not have. The latter was a trait that Dolor silently abhorred: silently, because it was stupid to give warning to a colleague whose willingness to harm children might one day earn him a knife across his throat. So perhaps Rombaldo’s death today was all for the best: a murder of necessity instead of what might have one day become an unavoidable killing on principle.

  Yet, all things considered, his time with Rombaldo had actually been one of the most pleasant stretches of his otherwise rough and bloody life. Ever since Olivares had ordered him to mount and maintain a subtle investigation into who had helped Urban escape, and where to, and with what purpose, Dolor’s daily duties involved managing information rather than assassinations. Madrid’s preeminent puppet master also made sure to bring Pedro to court during one of those visits, ostensibly with the intent of acclimatizing him to the grandees and vice versa—a necessary precursor to using him as yet another means of spying on them.

  It was an experience Dolor was not eager to repeat, having come within shouting distance of one of Philip’s senior intelligencers and a person from whom he wished to maintain particular distance, at least until a time and place of his choosing: Zuñiga. Happily, the grandee never did see the much younger man, nor did he notice his efforts at careful avoidance.

  Of course, Dolor reflected, further trips to the Escorial were now the least of his worries. His mission had failed. Olivares would very probably distance himself, and the attainability of Pedro’s final goal would rewiden by just that same measure. All in all, it was quite frustrating, having been foiled by an esoteric detail of radio science.

  He dusted off his hands over his blanket and scraped the crumbs together. Whatever else he did, he could not afford to leave anything that would attract rats and, thereby, attract human attention to what should be a completely unremarkable attic. Would that he could have achieved the same unnoticeability with the cellar, but it had not been possible. It had been necessary to stockpile rations and equipment there, preliminary to playing their secret role in the assassination of Urban. But given that the day’s events had compelled Dolor to relocate swiftly, and that he needed to remove the radio and its batteries, he had been unable to carry any more than his own rations and a small bag of quicklime, lest he draw undue attention. Which meant that there were ten man-days of foods left there, no longer hidden under quite so much lime as before.

  Pedro Dolor put the all the crumbs he had found into his mouth, one by one; the window had to remain mostly shuttered now, lest someone become curious as to who was opening and closing it. A pity, really, as he was intensely curious to see how the last moves in this long game of covert pontificide would play out, and for which the window of his final refuge promised to offer an unparalleled view.

  Part Six

  Saturday

  May 10, 1636

  The firefly’s quick, electric stroke

  Chapter 34

  Estève Gasquet glanced at Norwin Eischoll. The Swiss was already looking at him with an exasperated expression that probably mirrored the one on his own face. Chimo and one of Eischoll’s men could no longer remember what they had been told—repeatedly—less than an hour ago.

  Fortunately, there was a second opportunity to force-feed the two of them the basics of the attack plan. Since someone reliable had to be left on watch outside the one-room hovel, Brenguier had missed the presentation. And now that one of Eischoll’s men had taken his place, he needed to be filled in on the details.

  Brenguier pulled a stool over to the hovel’s one table, sat, and stared at the rough map Eischoll’s handler had furnished of the palace grounds and interior. “So what’s the plan?”

  Gasquet spoke before Eischoll could open his mouth. If the Swiss explained it a second time, everyone would look to him for leadership, regardless of what had been agreed upon. “There are three teams. One is outside the front of the building, another is at the rear, and the third goes in the main entrance.”

  “To receive Urban’s blessing as the new Swiss Guard?”

  Gasquet nodded. “That’s the idea. Von Meggen”—he jerked his head toward the small heap of corpses against the back wall of the building—“was good enough to arrange that for us. It’s to be Urban’s first order of business after he concludes this colloquium of his. But what we don’t know is where he will meet us.”

  Brenguier frowned. “Inside, of course.”

  Gasquet smiled. “Of course. His security hasn’t allowed him to make a single open-air appearance since we’ve been here. So the question becomes where in the palace he’ll meet us.”

  “I’ve got a question that needs answering before that one,” Brenguier drawled, still frowning. “Why are they going to let us in the palace if von Meggen isn’t with us, particularly since a lot of us don’t exactly look like the fellows we’re replacing?” He, too, nodded toward the corpses.

  Gasquet thanked his stars that Brenguier had a good head on his shoulders. “That’s been handled. Eischoll sent a messenger to the palace late yesterday, when von Meggen wasn’t watching. The message was that Freiherr Ignaz von Meggen had apparently consumed some tainted food or water and was very disappointed to report that he might be indisposed on the day of the ceremony. However, he was sending his faithful lieutenant to stand in his place.”

  Brenguier glanced at Eischoll. “You?”

  The Swiss nodded. “I’ve been careful to always appear with him whenever he speaks to the aristocrats, either in the palace or elsewhere. And he was good enough to point out the role I played in defeating the ‘assassins’ at St. John’s.”

  Gasquet leaned in, gesturing at the faces around the table. “The rest of us don’t have to really look like the Swiss. No one ever bothered to look closely at any faces besides von Meggen and Eischoll. And from our group, Chimo and Manel are about the same size as the farm boys they’re replacing. Lastly, we have these.” He held up a Spanish morion, rather worse for the wear.

  Brenquier took it in his hands, scowling. “Where did you dig this up? From a mass grave?” Eischoll shrugged.

  Gasquet leaned back. “Apparently, there’s a lot of Spanish equipment here, left from when they used to garrison Besançon. That’s why the helmets are falling apart and why the pope’s people won’t think them unusual. It’s just the kind of thing that prat von Meggen might have done: some stupid gesture to try to make his pack of butt-scratching valley squatters look like soldiers. And of course, given the condition of these helmets, they’ll have the opposite effect.”

  Brenquier nodded. “Meaning they’ll take us even less seriously—and be unable to see our hair or much of our faces.”

  Gasquet almost sighed in relief at Brenquier’s ready understanding. “Precisely. But they’re more than a disguise. Look inside.”

  Brenguier turned the helmet over; fastened on either side of the interior were what looked like out-sized ear-muffs. He frowned, looked up. “We’re going to be uncomfortably close to a bomb at some point, aren’t we?”

  From the corner of his eye, Gasquet noticed that even Eischoll had to nod approvingly at that. Gasquet grinned at Brenguier. “Not too close, we hope. But we’ll get to that later. The helmets are going to be worn by the third, or main, team: the one that goes in the front door.”

  Brenquier nodded. “And who’s on that team?”


  Gasquet struggled to remember the math behind their subterfuge. “Five of the real Swiss are gone. So that leaves seven. One more—Klaus Müller—is going to be with the outside team. So that leaves six Swiss for the main team. With von Meggen missing, the pope is going to be expecting only eleven recruits. So that means five of us have to take the place of the missing fools. That will be you, me, Donat, Chimo, and Manel. Huc will be on the outside team with Klaus. Peyre has the rear.”

  Brenguier rubbed his hands. “So I take it the main team is the one that gets to do the fighting. Where are the weapons?”

  Gasquet shrugged. “Inside.”

  “Inside what?”

  “Inside the palace. They’d never let us through the front door with anything more than daggers. If that.”

  Brenguier’s face went through a quick evolution of expressions: surprise at Gasquet’s answer, then anger, then a frown as he obviously realized the necessity of the arrangement, and lastly a look of dull acceptance. “Very well. And how do we get those weapons?”

  Gasquet glanced at Eischoll before answering. “As I understand it, they will be served to us.”

  “Served? As in, on a silver platter?”

  Gasquet shrugged. “That could literally be the case. At any rate, they will be there.”

  “And if they’re not?”

  “Then we’ll hope the bomb does more damage than it’s designed to do.”

  Brenguier leaned back. “Ah. The bomb that’s going to come too close to us.”

  “That’s why, when it comes through the window, you act surprised, then go low, one hand over your eyes. Use the other to jam the helmet down.”

  Brenguier scanned the map. “If I’m reading the symbols right, there are a lot of windows in the palace. Which one will the bomb come through?”

  “The one we call for.”

  Brenquier looked up, his eyebrows halfway to his hairline. “And how do we do that?”

  “By singing.” When Brenguier just blinked, Gasquet explicated. “As you said, the only thing we know is that the pope will meet us inside. But there are three possible places. The entry hall or ‘foyer’ as they style it, the receiving hall, or the great hall. That last one is very unlikely, but no matter: once we see the pope, we start singing.”

  “And why would we do that?”

  Gasquet indulged in a smirk. “For the same reason we’d wear these stupid helmets: because we’re a bunch of Swiss yokels who are trying to show their appreciation and seriousness like a bunch of overgrown children. We start singing because that’s a ‘gift’ we can give to the pope, and one that demonstrates our dedication to the Church.”

  “So: a different song for each window?”

  Gasquet nodded. “Te Deum for the entry hall, Dies Irae for the receiving hall, Deus Creator Omnium for the great hall.”

  Brenguier nodded back. “And what sort of bomb is it?” He looked at Eischoll. “Or can’t you tell us that, either?”

  Norwin shrugged. “Not only can I tell you; I can show you.” He reached down beneath the table and brought up a tube of black metal, open at one end. “It’s what the up-timers call a pipe bomb.”

  Brenguier reached out carefully toward it. “Made of iron? Where’d you get that?” Metal pipe was a nearly unheard-of rarity. At least it had been before Grantville dropped out of the future.

  Gasquet cut off Eischoll again. “From the up-timers.” Seeing the incredulous look on Brenguier’s face, he shook his head. “No, not from them directly. It just so happens that Bernhard brought a bunch of them here to start up some kind of metal shop in Bregille: the Silo Design and Construction Corporation, it’s called. But they’re doing more than that: they’re making all kinds of fittings to carry water, grain, slurry.” He jutted his chin at the bomb. “Eischoll was told that they were selling this, and about a dozen other pieces, for scrap, if you can believe it.”

  Brenguier looked from the Swiss back to Gasquet. “So no one here made the bomb? Then how do we know we can trust it?”

  “Because the people paying us really want the pope dead, and a flawed bomb isn’t going to help them achieve that. But they explained the design pretty thoroughly, so that if something happened to it before today, we could try to fix it and carry on.”

  Brenguier stared at grooves that had been cut into the pipe in a crisscross diamond pattern. “How long did it take to do that?”

  Gasquet shrugged, remaining casual as he seethed with the necessity to refer the question to Eischoll. “Ask him.”

  Norwin’s face was expressionless. “You know, I asked our handler the same question.”

  Brenquier frowned. “What did he answer?”

  “‘Don’t ask.’”

  “What sort of answer is that?”

  “A bad one. But obviously, it took him a long time.”

  “Why did he do it—cutting those grooves?”

  “He told me it makes the bomb more deadly.”

  Brenguier shook his head. Gasquet sympathized: crazy up-timer ideas always seemed to involve equally crazy activities and jobs. This was no different.

  Gasquet settled the bomb back in the bag from which he’d removed it, twisting it so that it churned and sank down into the dense mix of nails and wire cuttings, ultimately filling it so that there was no slack in the fabric. “There are almost two pounds of reground, fine grain powder in there, the kind the up-timers use in their percussion cap revolvers. Compressed to the point where it’s damn near solid.”

  Brenguier nodded at the bag. “Why not put the fragments inside the bomb?” Which was the customary practice.

  Gasquet had to spend a moment recalling what Eischoll had told him. “More shrapnel this way, with more even spread and also less velocity.”

  “Less velocity means less killing power,” Brenguier objected, folding his arms.

  “True. And that’s just what we want. Firstly, we could be pretty close to it. Secondly, we’re not counting on this bomb to kill the pope or his allies. We just want it to make enough noise and inflict enough wounds to shock the defenders—long enough for us to get to our own weapons, and then theirs, and finish them off.”

  “You make that sound awfully easy.”

  Gasquet shook his head. “It won’t be. If we didn’t have the bomb going off first, I doubt we’d even make it to our weapons. In particular, don’t underestimate those bog-hoppers, the Wild Geese. They may not know how to parade march and stand at attention for hours on end, but they know how to fight. Close and dirty, and with pepperbox revolvers, heavy rapiers or sabers, and wearing cuirasses. They’re all veterans of the Lowland Wars and devoted Catholics; we can’t expect them to run, and they’ll be damned hard to kill.”

  “So I take it that, unless I have a shot at the pope, killing these Irish savages is the priority?”

  “Actually, no. There will be some Burgundian troops in there as well. Probably restricted to the entry hall. They’ll be the easiest to kill, the easiest to scare into running. Doing that should even the numbers. So we need to get them when they’re stunned, disoriented.”

  Brenquier nodded. “Fine by me. How many Wild Geese can we expect to face?”

  Gasquet picked his teeth with a blood-coated paring knife that had been used to kill one of von Meggen’s true-hearted followers. “I wish we knew. There are about forty of them here in Besançon. But during the day, about eight are sleeping—the night guards for the cloister, along with the ambassadora’s Marines. A few are on special duty. One’s a surgeon. A few more are a reserve guard that we suspect are kept in a central location. The rest are scattered around the palace.”

  “Still, it sounds like we could face almost thirty.”

  Gasquet shook his head. “No, because a lot of them won’t be anywhere near the pope. The Swiss tell us that, in Rome, most of the Pontifical Guards just stand watch over corridors and major entries. When the pope is moving, a much smaller number forms a barrier around him. We’re guessing they’ll do the same here.”

&
nbsp; “So, we’ll still have to deal with a flock of these annoying Wild Geese.”

  “Yes,” persisted Gasquet, “but a small one, and probably in the receiving hall. Although we might be enough of an embarrassment that they’ll keep us out in the foyer…er, entry hall.”

  “Better than being tradesmen at the back door.”

  “Much better. It’s best to take Urban as close to the front door as possible. The deeper into that damn palace we go, the harder to get out afterward. Besides, we don’t want to draw attention to the back door.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Never you mind.” Gasquet smothered a small smile. “Anyhow, we wouldn’t want to get in the way of the tradesmen working there.”

  “Why?”

  “Because when we’ve killed Urban, we run out the back, through the kitchen.”

  Brenguier smiled. “So, out with the trash.”

  “If you like. At any rate, out toward the rear gate.”

  “There are usually four of the Irish there at any time.”

  Gasquet nodded. “Yes, and we have another bomb for them. Just like the first one.”

  Brenguier looked doubtful. “And the defenders inside the palace are just going to let us stroll out through the rear gardens?”

  Gasquet shook his head. “No, and that’s why the second man on the outside team—Klaus—will be throwing a smoke bomb after the pipe bomb: to make it impossible to see where we are, and later, where we run.”

  “And is the smoke bomb similar to the pipe bomb?”

  Gasquet produced one. “Very different, actually.” It was longer, thinner, and made of wood. Its sides were lined with what looked like the finger holes of a fife, but plugged with wads of glue. “The mixture inside is six parts saltpeter and four parts finely ground sugar, mixed evenly into four parts of liquid wax and white dye and then poured into the interior tube.”