Blood Ties (6 page)

He had barely marshalled them before the sally port, the last bolt shot, when the bloodied head of a Sienese burst up from below ground, an ear half off, screaming, ‘They are in the tunnel! Christ, brothers, the enemy are at the door!’

If the Florentines were back in the tunnel, then where the hell was Haakon?

Cautiously raising his head above the parapet, Jean got his answer – as ten figures rose from the trench opposite and a Norse voice screamed, ‘Siena!’.

The enemy
were
in the tunnels, but they were not quite at the door. The Fugger knew, because he was, along with the three arquebusiers, their weapons still undischarged. He was laying the last of the gunpowder trail that ran into the darkness ahead in a channel he’d cut only the previous night. The last twenty paces of it, by necessity, was rough hewn in the recent, scrambling minutes, being on the Florentine side of the mine.

In his battle rage, it was unlikely that Haakon had remembered to close the enemy doors. It might not matter. There might still be sufficient blast, if they shut their own doors. If he had calculated the charge right.

Poised over the gunpowder channel, the Fugger raised the glowing cord in one hand. And just as he did, three Florentines ran around the corner.

There were six flashes, from arquebus and pistol, and the explosion in that tight space blew out one of the Fugger’s ears, knocking him sideways. Smoke blocked out what little light the one lantern gave; yet from where he fell, stunned though he was, he looked still for the glowing taper’s end, the one he had to thrust into the gunpowder channel before him.

There was no taper. Bringing his hand close to his face he realized there was no third and little finger to pinch the taper between, just blood and shattered bone. A lead ball had carried them away.

The three men next to him were dying or dead. The Florentines ahead had disappeared but they, or some of their fellows, were still down the tunnel, rallying for an attack.

There was no time. Something had to be done, before pain made him incapable. Beside him, a pistol poked from a dead man’s bandolier. It was a flintlock and he closed his remaining fingers around the stock. Primed, it needed only the flick of the thumb to turn its wheel, a spark would leap into the pan, ignite the gunpowder, fire the ball. They misfired five times out of ten, the Fugger had heard.

Blessing even half a chance, with half a hand, he lowered the gun over the channel of powder and, as the voices up ahead grew closer, flicked the wheel.

Just as the clouds parted and moonlight lanced across the ground, Haakon’s men stormed out of the trenches. A dozen paces gained before an explosion of musketry from whence they’d fled and, despite the way they dodged, four were struck down immediately, one rising to stagger on alone, two of the figures, golden hair silvered in the light, stopping to aid their stricken comrades. Five more paces, and Beck felt she could get a clear shot over their heads so she fired, just ahead of the volley from De Monluc’s guard. The musket balls, the heavier moschetti, tore lead into the gabions, the wicker screens of the enemy ripped away as if by an unseen hand.

It was what the enemy awaited, for even if De Monluc’s reserved volley took some of them out, at least a hundred men still chose to leap the parapets and give chase. Their quarry had gained half the distance to the walls, but though some men raced further, nearer to safety, the stragglers were left behind and the gap closed rapidly. It would be but a moment and they would be overwhelmed.

‘Now!’ screamed Jean, and the sally port was thrown open, men pouring from it. The first of the fleeing men entered their ranks, ran on to the opening in the wall. The last five had been caught and, flinging their wounded behind them, Haakon and Erik turned with weapons raised.

‘A Haakonsson!’

They were engulfed. Men swept around them, meeting those coming out from the city, like a wave crashing onto a beach colliding with the one that had crashed just before. War cries died, replaced by the grunt of blows given, blocked, struck home. The Norsemen, father and son, stood side by side, and lost count of the times they took blows meant for the other, axe and scimitars a blur of cutting edge, a space carved before them filling with bodies, soon slippery with blood.

It could not last. The waves that had clashed together had been more or less the same, stopping the other with equal force. But reinforcements kept flooding out from the Florentine trenches; someone over there had seen the tantalizing open gate in the wall they’d been trying to breach for fifteen months. As more joined, the defenders formed into a rough half circle to withstand them, giving ground, backing toward their escape, each knowing that if one broke, they would all break, to be trapped and slaughtered before that tiny entrance.

Unable to use her reloaded musket due to the press, Beck had watched the desperation build below, saw the inexorable gathering of the enemy, her friends about to be swept away by it. There was only one chance now and she took the stairs two at a time. She found Jean on the middle level, above the battle. He was pressed against the wall, his mouth working, staring into the mêlée.

‘Now, Jean, now! Send in De Monluc’s French. It is their only chance.’

Jean continued to stare ahead, muttering.

‘What is the matter with you? Send them in.’

He turned and she recoiled from the deadness in his eyes.

‘They are lost.’

Bursting past him, she ran down the remaining stairs. Leaping onto a powder barrel there she cried, ‘Frenchmen! Your ancestors followed Jeanne d’Arc to glory. Will you follow me?’

A shout came from twenty throats and, pulling her short sword from her side, Beck led the pike men out the sally port. They formed up, lowered their pikes and advanced.

It made a difference, for a moment, twenty armoured men in a tight body thrusting forward. Friends dodged under their points, foes gave back before them. Disciplined, they halted at the front of their line and the Germans and Spanish there gave back a few paces, opposing pike to their pike. These soldiers, professionals all, had faced each other for fifty years across the battlefields of Italy. Each would await the other’s next move.

A silence, the weird silence that sometimes descends on a combat, descended now. Men took breaths as if they’d only just learned how. Even the wounded seemed to still their moans. In this silence, Beck found the Norsemen, standing just behind the line of pike, leaning on their weapons.

‘You’re bleeding, Haakon.’

‘Beck! I might have known I’d see you here.’ He looked himself up and down. ‘This? This is not my blood.’ And he laughed. Loudly.

The laugh broke the silence. ‘Surrender, you French and Sienese jackals. They will lock you out to die. Throw yourself on our mercy and you may be spared.’

There was a simple French word. Even in Haakon’s execrable accent it was clear enough.

‘Merde!’

Noise returned to the battlefield in shouts, threats, wails. And under it, there came another sound, a
crump
– it was faint, yet somehow everyone there heard it. Maybe because it was accompanied by a pulse that ran up through their boots. Flame suddenly gushed from the Florentine trench, at that point where Erik had burst through, and the killing ground around them began to buckle and shift. Furrows, as if dug by some crazed plowman, shot out between legs, knocking men aside.

‘The mine! The mine is blown.’

And with that cry, a huge section of earth fell into the tunnels below. It was mainly on the Florentine side, and it dropped men thirty feet into the ground. A jagged rent appeared just before Haakon and Beck, the Norseman just managing to grab his son by the collar, dangling him over the sudden precipice for a moment before pulling him back.

Haakon yelled, ‘The hand of God, Beck?’

‘The one hand of the Fugger! Come on!’

The explosion had shaken Jean from his daze, preceded as it was by the Fugger bursting up from the well. Looking over, he saw, the front rank of the enemy disappear into the earth, saw reinforcements even now rushing around the flank of the hole, as his men began to squeeze through the narrow sally port.

‘My lord?’ he called up to the tower above.

‘Seen them, Rombaud,’ came a drawled response.

The volley cut down the pursuit, gave their own men a chance to withdraw. They crowded through the gate, but never blocked it and within a minute, all who could walk, crawl, or be carried were into Siena. Haakon and Beck were the last, going back for the one last wounded man of his command. Pushing him through the gate, he turned to Beck and smiled. ‘After you, my lady.’

He saw the beginnings of a smile in return, then saw that smile change to surprise, as she staggered into him. Reaching around to catch her, his hand encountered something hard, feathered. It protruded a finger’s length from her back.

He swept her up into his arms, moved inside. As the sally port slammed shut, he cried, ‘Jean! Beck is down.’

‘It’s all right. I’m all right!’ she said, just before she fainted.

Jean was there in a moment. ‘To me! Give her to me.’

He took her, wondering at how light she had become, in the long age since he had last picked her up. Her head was rolled back, sightless eyes under her heavy lashes, and he was suddenly terrified that he would never look into those eyes again, see her love or even her fury there. The crowd of men parted before him, jubilation quelled. Above, Blaise de Monluc stepped onto the ramparts, once more slowly sweeping the plumed hat from his head. Crouched at the foot of the stairs, a bloodied Fugger raised a bandaged arm toward Jean and his burden.

There was only one place he could go, one person who could bring the flame back into Beck’s black eyes. He had to find her now, and swiftly. He had to find his Anne.

They began to trail him from the entrance of the ghetto. Even though they knew his destination, it was good practice to follow the old Jew through the narrow alleys, then onto the broader, crowded thoroughfares. Not only did they have to avoid his eyes – and this one was wary, stopping at street stalls, fingering a pear or a bolt of cloth while glancing the way he had come – they also had to spot and isolate his shadows. Three of them and hard to recognize in the throng, for they had eliminated all signs of their faith, dressed like any other Roman, stopping when the Jew stopped, sometimes moving past to wait, to let him pass again. They were good, but the Grey Wolves were better, soon had them isolated, cut out, two on one, within their own elaborate dance of misdirection and disguise.

Gianni Rombaud was pleased. They had learnt well, his Cubs, while his more experienced brethren – Rudolpho, Wilhelm – had assumed their role of shepherd effortlessly, restraining their own natural desire for the swift kill, in service to the plan. Wilhelm would be finding it especially hard, his hand twitching at his dagger. But meeting his eyes now, crouched over a book on the Via Gulia, haggling with the stall holder, even in the briefest of contact they allowed themselves, Gianni saw the Bavarian was poised, calm. Ahead, the Jew had lingered at a pastry cart, so Gianni grabbed an apple and threw it into the air, a coin plucked from his pocket, flicked across, before the fruit landed in his hand.

He was pleased for another reason. Three shadows meant their quarry had something valuable on him, probably rings, maybe even a necklace. The Grey Wolves hunted for the blooding, but it was always good to have a bonus for their efforts. Christ’s bounty funding Christ’s work.

The old man moved off rapidly, took an unforeseen turning, heading up toward the squatting mound of the Castel San Angelo. They had not been spotted, Gianni was sure, but something had spooked their quarry, some sense of danger in that old Jew head; if he was not to double back and disappear into the ghetto, where they could not follow, they would have to let him be.

Gianni began to eat the apple, not moving from where he’d bought it. It was old, had cellared the long winter, its skin mottled and streaked.
A little like the old Jew’s
, Gianni thought, chewing slowly, the thought making him smile. He was aware of his men, even though he did not see them, knew they recognized the signal of the apple, and would be finding things to do, books to peruse, nuts or roasted offal to buy. The Jew’s shadows flitted slowly past, one by one, slipping down the alley, soon to be lost in the maze ahead.

It did not matter. It had been a useful exercise. The Grey Wolves had stalked prey through half of Rome. Throwing the apple core into the clogged gutter at the centre of the street, Gianni turned down the alley opposite to the one the Jew had taken. He knew the rest of them would take their own routes to the rendezvous, would assemble there by the mid-morning bell. By that time, the reassured Hebrew would be inside the house in the olive grove on the edge of Trastevere. Thinking he was safe.

He passed a small chapel, erected for the working men of the neighbourhood and their families, its only outward sign a cross scored across the lintel. He paused. It would do him good to pray, to focus upon His words, to meditate as to why he was about Christ’s work in this unique way. Stooping, he entered the dim and scented world. It had rough walls, a lack of any adornment, a complete contrast to the ornate palaces of worship that abounded in Rome. It reminded him of the farmers’ chapels where he’d first met his Saviour, in the hills near Montepulciano.

The floor was crudely tiled, broken in places. Seeing he was alone, Gianni immediately threw himself down on the space before the altar, pressing his face to the ground, paralleling the cross above him with outstretched arms and began to recite his prayers. Usually, he could lose himself in the Latin, its comforting rhythms and familiar cadences, but today it seemed as jagged as the split tiles beneath him. At first he thought his mind was too full of the action ahead, seeking out little flaws in his plan, making adjustments. He struggled, knowing he should be able to put all that aside, to lose himself in his adoration of Christ. Struggled until he realized what was truly wrong – this chapel, so like the ones of his youth, raised memories that drove prayer from him. Even though he had not seen them in three years, his parents’ sins clung to him like choke vines round the stock.