assassins were reloading and preparing to charge the stairs. Prudence dictated that he should cede his current position: all their adversaries were able to aim at the one corner around which Ruy and his two riflemen could fire, whereas the cutthroats now ringing the base of the stairs were in a variety of positions. There was no longer a safe way to take a peek, find a target, and fire: any sign of movement attracted the discharge of two muskets charged with smaller shot. Ultimately, those odds favored the attackers. Retreating down to the hall would give him and his two rifleman better cover, from which they could concentrate their fire upon the landing at the top of the stairs. From that position, a lengthy stalemate might easily evolve.
But not victory. And now, to complicate matters, Ruy was finally hearing what he had been waiting for: gunfire being exchanged through the windows-and perhaps the door-at the back of the villa. Which could only mean one thing: someone-Sherrilyn, probably-had brought the root cellar’s reserve to the rear of the villa, and they were probably readying themselves to break in to relieve its defenders.
But if Ruy fell back from his position, she would have to fight her way through the door and into the teeth of more than twenty of the blackguards. Even if some of them attacked up the stairs, Sherrilyn’s group would suffer considerable casualties against those numbers. Besides, doorways were an attacker’s bane and a defender’s boon: they forced those rushing through it into a predictable area, an area which a reasonable defending commander could quickly convert into a funnel of death.
So, no, thought Ruy. He could not surrender his position at the head of the stairs, because only from here could his force support Sherrilyn’s entry into the room. And in order for her to be able to enter without all the assassins’ guns and blades trained upon her, she would need a flanking attack-or a diversion, at least.
Ruy scanned what he could see of the staircase without poking his head around the corner. It was almost entirely obscured by bodies, appearing rather like a ramp of corpses. Hmmm. That might do. He made sure his swords were secure in their scabbards and nodded for his two men to aim down the stairs as soon as they were done reloading. I am too old for this, he reflected as he checked that his. 357 magnum was fully loaded. Then again, I was always too old for this.
Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz sighed, crouched, and threw himself forward into sideways roll that carried him down the stairs.
For a moment, there was silence at the base of the stairs-and then bedlam. Fortunately for Ruy, the assassins were all so startled that they delayed, and then discharged their weapons too hastily. He was hardly a predictable target, either; his downward roll was made uneven by the same stair-piled enemy bodies that cushioned him as he went.
At the midpoint of the stairway, he reached his arms out to grab the flimsy railing’s sole balustrade with the flat of his palms, flexing his forearms and wrists against the sudden resistance and torque. The net effect was that his roll pivoted about that point: his feet and legs came around quickly as he clung to the balustrade, much as a fast-moving roller-skater might use the pole of a streetlamp to hang a fast ninety degree turn.
Ruy came off the side of staircase, letting the momentum pull him all the way around so that he came down on his feet, facing out into the room and into the eyes of his attackers, many of whom had lost track of exactly what he was doing, their vision compromised by the greasy smoke guttering up from the base of the stairs. Most of them had fruitlessly discharged their weapons in his wake, unable to successfully predict his motion. Consequently, those few weapons that were still being leveled at him marked the primary threats. Snatching the. 357 out of his holster, he fired at two of them and dove for the cover of a smaller, overturned serving table. Muskets roared after him- again, a split second too late.
Rolling up into a crouch and pulling his favorite rapier while bullets spat around and thumped into the tabletop, Ruy thought: Whenever you are ready, then, Miss Maddox…
Jerking back to avoid a musket ball that punched through the shuttered window through which he had hoped to access a target, Sherrilyn’s senior Hibernian Rolf froze as a sudden spasm of gunfire erupted from beyond the door-but was not aimed outward at them. “What the hell was that?” he asked.
The next sound gave Sherrilyn the answer to Rolf’s question: two distinctive. 357 magnum reports. “It’s Ruy! C’mon: pistols and swords. On me!”
Sherrilyn blasted four rounds blindly through the back door before she charged in. Between the bizarre events near the staircase, and the hail of nine-millimeter parabellum rounds punching through the timbers of the door they were hiding behind or next to, the entry’s defenders were either distracted or flinching away when she came bursting in with the Hibernians right behind her. That split second of confusion was all the advantage the relief force needed. Sherrilyn’s high-capacity automatic and the three Hibernians’ cap-and-ball revolvers thundered and flashed in a tight arc around the doorway, often less than a foot away from their targets. Assassins sprawled, some clutching wounds, others suddenly motionless. Two tried to run, but were cut down. Sherrilyn’s first post-entry order-“Down!”-didn’t come a moment too soon; the other assassins who, a moment before, had been reloading to flush out Ruy, turned and fired at this new, more considerable threat. Musket balls whistled overhead, struck the wall or sang out into the darkness-where Sherrilyn distinctly heard Kuhlman, one of the Marines who had just arrived from walking the perimeter, mutter “ Scheisse! ” Well, thank God for reinforcements-even if it’s only one man. “Kuhlman, covering fire from the door while we reload.”
“Yes, Captain,” Kuhlman shouted back, first firing his own flintlock and then the other undischarged enemy weapons that the Hibernians had leaned against the rear wall in readiness.
Larry Mazzare hurried into the kitchen’s basement, glad to be out of the secret passage: the staircase had doglegged under itself after they bypassed the concealed doorway into the northern wing’s hallway. A wedge of light slashed the dark ahead of Mazzare; he saw Lieutenant Hastings, still in the lead, gingerly raising the small storm door that opened into the kitchen, half a level above them.
“Is the way clear?” asked Vitelleschi’s admirably composed voice.
“I’m wondering that as well, Father. McEgan, on me; we’ll secure the kitchen and the way to the back door.” Hastings glanced back at Wadding. “Keep an eye on us; if we wave ‘all clear,’ tell the others and then run for all you’re worth.” The gunfire beyond the kitchen suddenly crescendoed into a mad thunderstorm; it did not sound promising to Larry.
But neither did George Sutherland’s calm comment two seconds later: “Someone’s entering the passage behind us, back up at the eastern hallway, I think. Here, lad.” He handed Patrick Fleming his prized, sawed-off double-barreled twelve-gauge, and quietly drew his preferred weapons for hand-to-hand combat: a short, broad- headed axe for his left hand, and a falchion for his right.
Fleming looked at the up-time weapon in his hands. “You’re the better shot, Sutherland. I’m just-”
“Lad, you don’t need to be a good shot with double-aught buck at spitting range. And besides, you may be a fine swordsman, but right now-no offense, lad-we need brute strength. We have to be sure that every one of them we hit goes down-and stays down.”
Larry Mazzare thought that sounded like a very good philosophy indeed. He crouched low behind Fleming, who made sure his pepperbox revolver was out and ready, and his saber was loose in its scabbard. “Your Holiness,” said Larry. He was surprised how calm he sounded.
“Yes, Lawrence?” came Urban’s voice out of the dark behind Larry.
“Wherever you are, I suggest to move to the side wall and stay low. Very low.”
“Thank you, Lawrence. You probably can’t see it, but I have already taken that exact precaution.”
And Larry, wondering if some part of him was becoming hysterical, thought: Evidently, the pontiff is also infallible in matters of faith and muskets…
Ruy, feeling the change in the battle’s tempo, popped up briefly from behind the table, fired once to pull the assassin’s attention back toward him, and yelled in his combat-stentorian voice: “Riflemen: fire!”
Obedient to his command, the sound of the lever-actions resumed at the top of the stairs. A few of the blackguards who had grown incautious in their eagerness to get a firing angle upon Ruy paid for their forgetfulness: they fell, dark maroon stains spreading out from sudden holes punched in their sweaty leather jerkins by. 40–72 rifle rounds. One stared at his wound, dazed; the other stared at nothing with lifeless eyes.
Now, thought Ruy with a smile, you are caught between Scylla and Charybdis, you murdering dogs. And it is time for me to find some better cover-perhaps a slightly larger table…
Valentino glared at the tableau before him. Twenty seconds ago, his forces had been ready-finally-to assault up the stairs, with plenty of men for the job. Now, with almost ten more casualties, and five more of the enemy in the room-one of which was a limping woman, strangely enough-the tide was reversing, and defeat was conceivable, if he did not do something immediately.
