The Cannon Law—ARC(128)

"Fuck," someone said from the other end of the front wall.



Frank looked, and saw that the musketeers were blowing on the matchcords of their locks, getting them to glow nice and bright. "Giovanna," he said, putting as much urgency into his voice as he could, "back upstairs now and get everyone ready."



When he didn't hear her move at once, heard her take a breath to ask or say something, he barked: "Now!"



Louder than he'd intended.



In a room full of nervous guys with guns.



And so the Committee of Correspondence fired the first shots at their attackers.





Chapter 35

Rome



Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz was not, with his many years of experience, often wrong. Much mistaken in his youth, occasionally wide of the mark in his middle years. Now, ripe in experience, being wrong was something of an unusual feeling.



In this instance, a somewhat nauseating one. The proper action, the correct action, when advancing against scattered and disorganized defenses, was to secure each strong point against the possibility of action against the flanks or rear and press on. A barricade held by twenty men could be pinned in place by fifty, while the remaining thousands took alternate routes. Barricades across main streets only prevented the passage of cavalry; infantrymen could readily pass through alleyways and side streets at only moderate hazard. There was a price in disorganization of the main body, of course, although that could readily be remedied at some point short of the ultimate objective. And Sanchez felt he must perforce allow that the troops leading this assault were at least above the ordinary quality and would be unlikely to make too much of a muddle of complicated maneuvers.



Such, at least, was the received wisdom of the profession of arms. Other orders seemed to have been given. Alternate routes were being found, but only after time was taken to organize serious assaults on each barricade. It was as if a special effort was being made to either make the main force bleed, enrage them, as a picador would, or they were being deliberately advanced slowly to some other purpose. The three barricades whose fall Sanchez had watched had not taken long to succumb. A small volley of arquebus fire did nothing to check the advance of pikes and sword-and-buckler men, supported by muskets. There were few of the older, clumsier weapons in evidence on the attacking side, further bolstering Sanchez's view that these were, if not elites, troops of quality. A few losses were taken each time in making the defenders leap down from their makeshift ramparts and run for hiding places. The defenders, in their turn, were dying, and effort was being expended on chasing as many down as possible.



It was, from any conventional point of view, folly. The tactic was dispersing large bands of men, roused to the attack, throughout the city. While sack and rapine was an accepted if regrettable part of warfare, most commanders sought to do all they could to prevent it save as a punishment for futile resistance. On those occasions it was ordered. Here, it appeared that whoever was giving the orders was attempting to provoke atrocity without being seen to give the order.



But why? Borja's pretext had long since vanished. It would have been trivial to leave word at Ostia to prevent the march. Doubtless the defenders of Ostia, such as they were, expected the fleet that was arriving to sail straight back once they learned of the calmed situation in Rome. Had, in all likelihood, looked forward to the profit in revictualling those ships.



It was a conundrum indeed. A further insight came as he rode past the Colosseum. The advancing army had passed to the west of the Palatine, staying close to the river. Rather than attempt to guess their route through that district so as to maintain scouting contact with them, Sanchez passed around the east and north sides along the wider streets, urging his mount into a trot. Only the officers of that army were mounted, and that advantage of mobility was there to be used. Having thus moved away from the line of advance of the invaders, Sanchez noticed no less than four parties of armed men, moving with determination and clear purpose. The smallest, at a rough count, of thirty men, all musketeers.



Sanchez could not swear that he had seen no such parties splitting from the main column, although in order to be ranging so far ahead as they were some of them must surely have sprinted through the streets, a practice no soldier with even the slightest experience of fighting in a town would wish to indulge in. Or, for that matter, any soldier out of sight of senior officers would indulge in on a warm day in full battle gear. As a great likelihood, therefore, parties of soldiers had been force-marched ahead of even the rapid advance of the main body and had entered the city from other directions. To what purpose? Raiding and harrying in the rear of the pitiful defenses of Rome was at best a waste of effort. That left—