"Indeed," Don Vincente said, not cracking his face one bit. "And the inquisitor would be most disappointed if we did not take one or two prisoners. I will order a most careful search of the remainder of the premises for anyone who might be hiding, for example on an upper floor or in a cellar. It might be that my sergeant will redeem himself of his besetting sin of sloth? I certainly pray God that the fellow takes the path of righteousness."
Frank smiled, then. "He has an excellent example to follow, Don Vincente," he said. "I see that you follow every order you are given to the letter."
Don Vincente inclined his head briefly to acknowledge the compliment. "I see that my worthless layabout of a sergeant is returned."
Another exchange of Spanish, and Don Vincente turned back to Frank. "I must regretfully inform you that this parley is concluded. The inquisitor demands to know why I have not shot or arrested you. May I request a further half-hour's truce while I explain to the tiresome fellow what a white flag actually signifies?"
"By all means," Frank said, grinning in spite of himself.
"I shall have a bugle blown at the end of the half-hour, Señor Stone. Until we meet again, I wish you much joy of the day."
With that, and no further ceremony, Don Vincente and his sergeant walked away.
"Shit," Frank said, and went inside to tell the other guys.
Chapter 40
Rome
"Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, you are just plain freakin' nuts."
Even in the gathering gloom, Tom could see the man's grin and the way the mustachios flared like the wings of a bird. Tom knew what kind of bird, too. A loon. "No, my way is perfect sanity. I, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, am perfectly sound of wits. It is those who would turn down the chance for such a magnificent adventure who are, as you say, freakin' nuts. And if we succeed, it will be spoken of in a thousand years."
Tom snickered. "Yeah, they'll be saying jeez, were those guys nuts, or what? Or possibly, man, that was a horrible way to die!"
Darkness had all but fallen, the sky a pale and purplish hue and the sun well down behind the skyline of Rome, if not fully over the horizon quite yet. And here they were, loafing about in plain view on the left bank of the Tiber, looking across the river at the Castel Sant'Angelo. The Ponte Sant'Angelo was out of the question, but Ruy was talking about boats as a way out of the city, and, now, a way across to the Castel itself. Two birds with one stone.
They'd left Doctor Nichols and a couple of Marines downriver a ways. They'd ridden around to the south, right through the gate as bold as brass, and left the horses, the doctor, and a small guard with orders to pick their way out of the city. The doctor had gotten away with his rather distinctive appearance so far by being dressed up as a Spanish soldier. They didn't have many black soldiers, but there were nevertheless a few who, through one misadventure or another, ended up bouncing around Europe. Tom had seen a couple as far north as Thuringia, although hadn't had much chance to talk to them. Ruy said that in a soldier's outfit, Doctor Nichols would attract mild curiosity, but would pose no particular problem.
Now, though, having seen what Ruy thought amounted to a perfectly reasonable proposition, Tom was beginning to doubt the man's sanity. To start with, there was the Castel Sant'Angelo itself. The walls were, from the looks, thirty to forty feet high. And guarded by enough men to keep up a constant cannonade from behind them. There was no telling if, or when, they'd take it into their heads to lob a few shells over to this side of the river. For now, they were pasting the general area around their fortress with a bombard shell every thirty seconds or so.
There didn't seem to be any pattern to it. Just, every now and then, a loud crash and, against the softly glowing evening sky, a trail of sparks would shoot up from somewhere inside the fort, arch over, and drop with a crash somewhere in the buildings around the fort. About every fourth shot was a dud, but otherwise there would then, a moment or two later, be a crack and a puff of smoke shot through with a flare of yellow flame. Sometimes, if the bombardiers got lucky, a few screams.
Which was bad enough. But to get a chance to get blown up on the way to the sheer walls and alert guards, they first had to get past what looked like, allowing for the dim light, the entire Spanish army. All of whom had their attention very, very firmly fixed on the aforementioned sheer-walled fortress and its alert guards, et cetera.
The plan to get across the river seemed sound enough. Most of the wall was pretty well lit up with bonfires that the besiegers had lit, just outside accurate shooting distance. The exception was on this near side, where the fortress stood right at the riverside. The main defense here was the river itself, and getting across the river to the esplanade under the fort walls basically meant coming right under the fort's guns. So there were no fires there, and the fires to either side cast long, deep shadows right along the wall. Once they got that far, they would be all but invisible. The Spanish commander had apparently decided that sending men over there was a waste, a certain slaughter as there was no cover anywhere on the Ponte Angelo. He had simply left a guard force on the near end of bridge to contain any sally the defenders might make.