too methodical to create a situation in which the hostages would be easily snapped up by the opposition.
“We’re moving.” Harry headed for the stairs. “Now.”
“Are you sure this is the place?” Owen asked in a low voice.
John O’Neill looked up at the second story of the unfamiliar house. “I think so, but I’m not sure. When I was here, students stayed back there.” He waved farther down the street by which they had approached St. Isidore and its college, which was only a small wing added onto the church’s rectory.
O’Neill looked up beyond the steep, flanking steps at the porticoed white facade of the church: two tall openings framed an even taller, wider archway that was in line with the doors. Bordered on three sides by the lush green vegetation of the largely unbuilt Pincio, Luke Wadding’s Irish College looked unchanged from when he had visited it, shortly after its opening ten years ago.
Owen’s voice was still low, but was now worried, as well. “John, we can’t stay here. It’s too open, and we’re too many not to attract attention. Besides, the place is thick with Spaniards.”
John frowned. Thick with Spaniards? Hardly. Well, not so much. But, now that he looked closer, beyond the two at the entry, and the two he’d seen leaning in the shade of the portico’s arches, there were several more that appeared occasionally in the windows of the rectory and annex. Not exactly patrols, or at least not strict ones. Just a continuous presence, moving irregularly through the whole complex.
“John-”
“Yeh, yeh. I’m cogitating, Cousin.”
“Well, do it quickly, Johnnie. I think we’ve attracted the attention of the guards at the gate.”
“Aye, so we have. Well, there’s nothing else for it then. You stay here. Stay in the house, actually.”
“In this one just behind us?”
“Of course.”
“The door is locked.”
“And you’re a mighty fellow. Besides, it seems like classes have been suspended. There’s been no sign of the students who should be running in and out of here, and no fires or domestics preparing dinner. Just wait until I’m distracting the guards at the church’s main gate before you bust into the house.”
“You’re going to distract guards at the main gate? John, what are you going to do?”
“Use the only kind of power these Spanish are likely to understand. Synnot, McEgan: with me.”
“What? John-”
But John was already walking briskly across the Strada Felice, approaching St. Isidore’s along a small side- road from the west. The two morioned Spaniards at the gate exchanged long looks. One of them took a step forward, a hand raised. “ Non si puo. ” The Spanish guard’s Italian was ragged. “ Chiesa chiusa.”
“ Hablo espanol bien.”
The Spanish looked at each other again, clearly surprised.
Keeping to their language, John continued: “Besides, I doubt St. Isidore’s is closed to me.”
“And who are you?”
John produced his travel papers and a copy of his commission. “I am Lord John O’Neill, the third earl of Tyrone, Colonel of tercio O’Neill under Archduchess Isabella of the Spanish Low Countries. Etcetera etcetera etcetera. But most important, I am an old friend and student of Padre Luca. Whom I wish to see.”
Again the Spanish looked at each other. One more time, John thought, and it wouldn’t even make for a good comedy routine, anymore. “Is he expecting you?” one of them finally asked.
“I don’t really know,” John lied with a smile. “A letter was sent, but delivery is a little uncertain these days.” He gestured at the skyline; the tattered silhouettes of burnt buildings, and their pervasive smell, were unmistakable.
The Spanish nodded. “Yes. This is true. If the conde will be pleased to wait for one moment, I shall sent word to Father Luke tha-”
John brushed past the man, putting on haughtiness like a heavy cloak. “I will announce myself. I have not traveled so far, through such filth, to wait like a boy on the doorstep.”
He could hear the rapid conference fading behind him, and then one set of footfalls growing louder. “Lord, Conde Tyrone-please. We have orders. We cannot allow you to pass us without-”
“Well, then, don’t allow me to pass you. Come along. Announce me as I arrive, if you must.” Clearly not what the Spaniard was going to suggest, but perhaps a course of action he could accept, rather than contradicting or denying a noble a second time.
True to form, the Spanish trooper strode briskly ahead. Behind, John heard the other one exclaim, after them, “Roberto, no! You cannot take him in-” And, soft and almost inaudible behind that exclamation, John heard the pop of a flimsy lock being broken. Which meant that Owen and the rest of the Wild Geese were now in the abandoned dormitory, having done so while the last guard’s back and attention were turned away.
O’Neill reached the stairs that led up to St. Isidore’s entrance and started up, suddenly feeling ten years younger, possibly because of the memories of the place, but more likely because he was breaking rules and taking chances.
Sherrilyn, her short hair tied back and hat pulled low, turned right off the Via di Condotti. She was not following the coach itself, but had insinuated herself into the clutter of reintegrating traffic the vehicle left in its wake, trying to ignore the growing pain in her knee. And as soon as she swung around the corner, and assessed the carriage’s status on the northbound stretch of the Via di Ripetta, she resisted the urge to dodge right back. That was too obvious, so she crouched down, as if searching for a dropped coin. Then she stood, making sure her back was now to the carriage, and limped back around the corner.
And almost ran into Thomas North in the process. Who looked down at her knee. “Have you injured yourself, Ms. Maddox?”
“Just an old sports injury. I’m fine. Here’s the situation: the coach has drawn up in front of the Villa Borghese. If anyone was riding in it, we’ve come too late to see.”
“And you are so pale because-?”
“Because the whole damned street is filled with Spanish troops, checking people. Checking everyone who stands still long enough to be checked, from the look of it.”
“And not from any pain in your knee?”
“Listen, shut about about my knee. I’m fine.”
Felix Kasza licked his lips. “With all the Spanish in the next street over, I am thinking it is time to leave, then?”
North nodded. “I’d say so. As I recall the first briefing with Romulus, it was believed that Frank and Giovanna’s first prison was close to the Villa Borghese, wasn’t it, Ms. Maddox?”
“Yep,” she answered, “they were penned right under Borja’s very feet, some thought. Are you thinking they’ve been brought back there?”
Thomas North frowned as they started to amble casually away from the corner. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
“It just doesn’t feel right, not the sort of thing our opponent would do. Ask me ‘why’ again later; my brain may have caught up with my instincts, by then.”
“What gives, Harry?” The outdated up-time expression sounded comically awkward coming from Matija. “Those three fellows just walked right past the guards and into St. Isidore’s Church.”
Harry pocketed the small field glasses. “Not quite, Matija. The leader got stopped by the two guards at the gate, spoke with them a bit. Then he breezed past them.”
Gerd smiled. “And one of them ran after him like a little bub, trying to make him stop.”
“Hmmm. I don’t think it was quite that clear cut. Looks like the two Spanish guards wanted to stop him, didn’t have the authority to do so, and now one of them is ‘escorting’ him in.”
“Leaving only one guard at the gate,” Matija pointed out.
“Yeah, but there are others near the entrance to the church, and a few more stalking around inside the buildings attached to it.” Harry considered his surroundings: his team was in a side street, one block north of the Piazza Barberini, across from the Capuchin monastery. Beyond that dour building there was a scattering of marginally inhabited cottages, and then St. Isidore’s, all of which had their backs to the extensive fields that radiated southward from the Villa Ludovisi.
Donald Ohde made a clucking sound with his tongue. “Okay, Harry, what are you thinking?”
