The Cannon Law—ARC(164)

Still, Borja could not shake a vague feeling that the man was laughing at him.



"Enlighten me, Don Pablo," Borja said, turning away from a last glance at the Castel Sant'Angelo. The Barberini's defiance was no longer being hurled by the bombard-shell full from its ramparts, or battlements, or whatever they were called. Bastions, possibly.



"As Your Eminence wishes. I will beg forgiveness if, in describing what may be, beyond the discernment of my eyes, I err in some small detail—"



"Fine, fine," Borja said, waving aside the excuse. "How soon is this assault likely to succeed?"



"Your Eminence strikes for the very nub of the matter." Don Pablo's salt-and-pepper mustachios crinkled upward in an ingratiating smile. "The walls of the inner ward are some hundred paces around, perhaps a hundred and fifty if I am any judge of these matters. Seventy-five to a hundred, leaving out of account the river wall where an escalade is not practical. Along that wall, perhaps two thousand men can be brought to the point of decision. Against two hundred who will be defending the walls."



"Ten to one odds, eh?" Borja said, hearing the first cheerful news in some hours. "Surely the slaughter will be brief?"



"Alas, Your Eminence, would that it were so. There will be perhaps a dozen ladders, and at the top of each will be a single man. Against him will be ranged two, perhaps three Swiss Guards. Only the very skilled and lucky will achieve the wall, and they in turn must be still luckier to survive long enough atop the wall for his comrades to get over and assist him."



"It will, however, be inevitable? Surely with so many—?" Borja was keen not to let Don Pablo—what was the rest of the man's name again?—make too many excuses and deflate the small moment of hope Borja had felt that the thing would be over soon.



"Your Eminence, the prospects are good. For it is true that we require only one lucky man with the courage of a lion. The Swiss Guard surrounding His Holiness require to be fortunate at the top of every ladder long enough to break the spirit of the attackers."



"How so? With such numbers—"



"Your Eminence, while these men wait at the foot of the walls, they will be showered with bullets and grenades and even rocks thrown from above. Men will be wounded and die. Soldiers will bear much with the scent of victory in their nostrils, Your Eminence, but however willing their spirits, their flesh is weak. If they do not carry the walls quickly, Your Eminence, the defenders might break their spirit."



"And how likely is this?" Borja asked, his earlier ill-humor returning in force.



"Moderately, Your Eminence. Even with the conditions for a successful escalade being as favorable as they are at this time—"



Don Pablo's shrug was very expressive. It expressed hope, great hope, all the hope that a Christian gentleman might bear in an imperfect world where stout hearts stood firm against the sin of despair, yet allowed for those imperfections and admitted that to express true confidence in anything was to admit the cankerous worm of the sin of pride.



Borja sighed. "So it might be that a second attempt would be required?"



"Indeed, Your Eminence. And it would be my recommendation, and a course of action that will naturally suggest itself to your commanders at the Castel Sant'Angelo, that the men be well-rested before a second attempt is made. Waiting for dark tomorrow would also be well advised, at the very least. An escalade by daylight would be far less certain of success, and it would be a counsel of perfection that an assault wait for the following dawn."



"Why not dawn tomorrow?"



"Your Eminence would not flog a horse past its endurance?" Don Pablo's tone was the very model of politeness, but Borja could detect just a hint of testiness. Not sufficient that he might reprimand the man without being unseemly.



"Of course not," Borja said. He was no great horseman, but he could ride and owned several horses in addition to the mule he used on public occasions. A good horse was a valuable animal. In some circles, the suggestion that a man might abuse a horse was a fit subject for a duel—the title of caballero being taken very seriously by some.



"It is a similar case with soldiers, Your Eminence." Don Pablo's tone remained equable and patient without ever quite straying over the line into patronization. "These men have marched hard, with little rest, from Ostia after a sea voyage itself a source of discomfort and little sleep for men not habituated to the sea. That they remain able to fight is testimony to how stout their hearts are, Your Eminence, but a prudent commander will not attempt to press them beyond endurance, for in that direction lies certain failure."