1635 The Papal Stakes (60 page)

Owen had not seen this kind of carnage, this closely, before. As he watched, the left half of one pirate’s head simply shredded away in a cloud of red chunks; another lost the fingers of his pistol hand, and the eye that had been peering along the barrel; another’s chest rippled outward in a red crescent, a moment before blood and flesh sprayed out of the exit wound on his back, splashing in a wide arc upon the limp sail hanging on the mizzenmast.

“Clear!” shouted Donald.

Owen didn’t have time for even one encouraging word. “Get us up tight against her aft quarter!” he shouted over his shoulder at the oarsmen as he edged out onto the prow, from whence he gave new orders: “Hooks and spikes. Weapons ready.” He checked the pepperbox in his right hand and drew back the boarding spike in his left.

“You’re not boarding amidships?” Donald’s voice was doubtful, even above the noise.

“No time,” Owen yelled back, swinging and sinking his spike into the hull as the
barca-longa
finally bumped against xebec. “Besides, we’d be between North’s riflemen and the pirates. Not a place I want to be. Now, hooks and lines forward; make us fast, and then—when the
sassenach
starts the music—up we go!”

North frowned as he saw O’Neill ready to board the xebec along its starboard aft quarter. It was one of the most dangerous places to board, and comparatively easy to repel. The pirates understood that better than anyone; those who could began flooding back to the stern, weapons ready, savage cries rising up. After having been on the receiving end of so much death and destruction, they were clearly in the mood to begin to reverse the situation.

But, for whatever reason, Owen Roe, while ready, seemed to be holding his men back a bit. They had made fast a pair of grappling lines, but were taking time to gather and ready themselves, almost as if—

North smiled. Owen Roe was a wily bastard of a bog-hopper, after all. Yes, the pirates were indeed rushing to the stern to repel boarders. In fact, so many of the surviving corsairs were rushing in that direction, that they were actually beginning to get in each others’ way, bunching up—

“Fire teams!” North roared down the hill. “Supporting fire for our boarders. Now!”

Owen Roe O’Neill watched as one of the
barca-longa
’s crew perched on the bows jumped high and swung a tethered boarding hook overhand to sink it into the deck of the xebec’s overhang. But as he did, a flat-faced pirate pushed forward; his meaty paw held a hatchet, which was already flashing down.

Owen’s crewman watched as the flashing blade severed both the tether and his wrist; only a moment later did he scream and fall into the water. Muskets sputtered from behind him; the
barca-longa
’s own crew was lending a hand. The offending pirate staggered back, a ball creasing his shoulder, but nothing more.

Owen gritted his teeth. He heard the pirates massing near the lip of the stern overhang, just beyond where his people could see—and from which vantage point the pirates had a profound advantage over any number of boarders.
Well, hurry up then, you bloody
Sassenach
; can’t you see the target I’ve made for y—?

A dark round object, leaking smoke and sparks, went over Owen’s head, curving down lazily toward the crowd in the bow of the
barca-longa
.

“Grenade!” Owen yelled—and watched as, with near balletic grace, Paul Maczka of the Wrecking Crew reached up and batted it aside in mid air: the weapon landed in the water with a plop.

And then the fusillade from Punta Maestra began.

“About feckin’ time,” muttered O’Neill. Then shouting to his boarders: “Go!”

North, intent on saving every round of true up-time ammunition that he could, did not contribute to the fire that rolled out from the rocky slopes below him and drove down into the mass of pirates, packed tightly into the stern of the xebec. The first ripple of fire was, by pure chance, more of a ragged volley that caused a peppering of dark red bursts across the crowded pirate torsos. As those hit fell bleeding to the deck of the xebec, some tried finding cover, others turned and tried to run away from the press on the poop deck.

The sharp report of the sniper’s Remington 700 interrupted the flight of the first three that tried to flee back amidships; the ones behind them either dove to the deck or over the rail. Nerve and numbers riven, the pirates fell back from the stern, some now turning about in confusion, uncertain of where to go or what to do.

Owen heard the decrease in the Hibernians’ rate of fire, the desperate footfalls crisscrossing the poop deck above them without rhyme or reason and knew down in his belly that this was the moment he’d been waiting for. “On me, you
cultchies
!” he roared at the Wild Geese behind him, and jumped high from the prow of the
barca-longa
in the same moment that he caught the rail with a swing of his grappling hook and heaved himself upward.

He half fell on, half landed across, the starboard rail of the overhang. Letting go of the hook and its line, he shifted his left hand to pull himself over the rail in a tight roll. He came up—and there were two pirates already coming at him, their eyes wild and desperate.

Owen raised the pepperbox, aimed at the chest of the nearest pirate, and squeezed the trigger.

The front-heavy weapon blasted out a great volume of smoke—and pellets; loaded with a charge of .27 caliber lead balls, it emitted a cone of death that riddled the first pirate, and nicked the second one, spinning him around with a single hit in the arm.

Owen smiled as he heard the first of his Wild Geese clambering up behind him, and he drew his sword as the rest of the exhausted and widely wounded pirate crew turned, eyes wide. “Now, you bastards,” he said in a voice that—even to him—sounded more like an animal grow, “let’s be finishing this.” He leaped forward with a shout, the Gaelic war cries of his men following right behind him.

Thomas North watched the close combat on the deck of the xebec; although still outnumbered about three to one, the six Wild Geese and their leader rapidly drove the remaining corsairs before them. Any who survived their hail of lead and attempted to close found themselves facing fresh, armored troops whose skills had been honed by a lifetime training for, and fighting on the battlefields of, the Spanish Low Countries.

As the last half dozen corsairs were driven back into the bows, some started dropping their weapons, and began making the strange prostrations of surrender common among the people from the southern shores of the Mediterranean. The gestures vaguely disturbed North, reminding him of the self-abasing postures of supplication that were the expectations of shahs, khans and beys.

Owen and his Wild Geese seemed to find nothing disturbing in these appeals for quarter, perhaps because they did not notice them at all. The Irishmen made a swift, mortal passage among the remaining corsairs. Thomas grimaced:
not exactly a sterling display of Christian charity, but certainly no worse than these pirate dogs would have done had they won.
At least there’d be no torture or sodomy; the deaths were clean and quick, not cruel. Still…

Before North could give in to the temptation to pass harsh judgment on actions no different from those he’d taken many times himself, Owen looked up and waved wide and slow, repeating it three times.

So: Miro had his prize ship and a reasonable platform from which to operate his balloon at sea, if need be: the outsized poop-deck and overhang of the xebec made that possible, particularly if they lowered the mizzenmast. And, truth be told, North had to admit the xebec was a beauty that, from what he had seen, could sail as swift as a typhoon fleeing from the devil himself.

He turned to look at his adjutant. “Mr. Porfino, have you found your first battle edifying?”

“Eh? Uh…
si
, signor. I mean, yes sir.”

“Wonderful. I suspect you might find yourself a tad closer to the action next time. But for now, signal the
gajeta
in the Cala Santa Maria inlet to make its way around this headland and bring the balance of the prize crew to the xebec.” The young Piombinese swallowed and sprinted off to carry out his orders.

North set the safety on his rifle, leaned it against the rock behind which he had taken cover, and looked through his binoculars toward the
scialuppa.
Having chugged out to a safe range for the majority of the fight, the craft was now heading slowly back toward the inlet on oars alone, two of its crew readjusting the rigging of its lateen sail. When he finally found the right focus, he discovered that Miro and Lefferts were standing in the bows of their boat. And were looking back through their own binoculars; a moment later they both waved and grinned.

North returned their waves and felt the faint stirrings of annoyance at Miro. Yes, damn it, Estuban’s bold plan had worked. Furthermore, with Harry’s help and moral support, he had carried it out under fire, leading from the front because only he and Lefferts had all the necessary skills for this particular job. Miro was the only one who had possessed expert knowledge of the local waters, just as Harry had been the only one familiar enough with an outboard motor. Which, in turn, meant that he, Thomas North, veteran of innumerable campaigns across the continent, would now actually have to start acknowledging that intelligence amateur Estuban Miro was now in fact a genuine field operative. Which, North had to admit, was recognition he very much deserved.

But it was still very, very annoying.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Don Sancho Jaume Morales y Llaguno, governor of Castell de Bellver by appointment of the Carthusian monks of Valdemossa, was perplexed. And because he was perplexed, and hated being so, particularly in the presence of his social inferiors, he was angry. And growing angrier by the minute. He shook the sheaf of papers in his hand violently. “I ask again, what is this rubbish? Is it code?”

“It’s runic,” answered Frank Stone mildly. “An old Anglo-Saxon alphabet. Although, I think this is a little different. It’s Dwarvish, you see.”

Don Sancho goggled. “It is what?”

“It’s Dwarvish. See, there was this author named Tolkien, and he took these runes from way back in English history—back from before the Viking invasions, I guess. He adapted those runes to represent the alphabet used by the dwarves, who are short, really broad, have long beards, and live under mountains where—”

The governor of Bellver leaned back. “You are here less than two weeks, and already suffering from delusions?” He glared at Giovanna. “Or has he always been like this? Has he bouts of insanity?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she answered airily. “I am often out of the house, grooming our unicorns.”

Don Sancho’s eyes widened, and then narrowed. “You mock me. You will regret this.”

Gia smiled sweetly at him. “I doubt it.” Then she looked out the window, drew her legs under her on one of the narrow alcove’s courting seats, and enjoyed the breeze blowing in off the sea.

Don Sancho became red again and turned to stick a finger so directly into Frank’s face that the up-timer was tempted to bite it. “I ask you again,” snapped the governor, “what are these writings? They look demonic.”

“No, no: it’s just a novel. You know, like
Don Quixote
.”

The governor scoffed. “As I understand it, Cervantes constrained himself to writing his prose is an appreciably human script!”

Frank nodded, thought,
damn, this guy would have been
really
cheesed if I was writing in the elves’
Quenya
. He would probably have made me the main attraction at a human weenie roast.
“I’m sorry if it upsets you.”

The governor stared, then threw down the papers in exasperation. “Señor Stone, I assure you, if there is sedition in these papers, or an attempt to somehow communicate beyond these walls, we will learn of it. One of the scholars in Palma indicated that the letters might be from an old Scandinavian dialect, so, although it may take some time, we will be able to decipher them. And moreover, no other person will see them until and unless you are freed.”

Frank nodded again. “I understand.”
And I also understand that even once you’ve deciphered the runic alphabet, you’re still not going to be able to make any sense of it, because you won’t have a single clue for understanding the other code in which it’s written. Even if you somehow manage to make sense of all the terms I use from
The Lord of the Rings
and about a dozen fantasy games, you won’t understand what it really means unless you know that the orcs are the Spanish, the uruk-hai are hidalgos, the Nazgul are inquisitors, and so on and so forth, all the way down to the Uttermost West being up-time Earth. So sure, you’ll decode the alphabet in which the book is written, but you’ll still have gibberish. Happy reading, asshole.

“And we will take these documents whenever we wish, you understand.”

“Of course,” Frank agreed.
As if I’m stupid enough to make just one copy.

“And we may have to take possession of it for extended periods.”

“I would expect so.”

Don Sancho dropped the papers. “You may have them back for now. Although I repent my agreeing to your request for the paper and ink. I would never have consented at all, but for the intercession of that annoying captain.”

Frank felt his chest tighten slightly. “What annoying captain?”

“You know. The one who came with you. The one they stationed here with those arrogant brutes from Fort San Carlos.”

Frank could feel Gia’s eyes on him, both playful and recriminatory. “He did that?” asked Frank. “He helped me get the paper and ink?”

“Help you? Señor Stone, if it was not for his insistent meddling on your behalf, you would not have the papers, or the ink, or this apartment which, I will point out, was mine up until your arrival. It is the governor’s privilege to enjoy the views and cool breezes of the top floor of the main tower. In Philip’s own name, he forced me out, declaring it the most secure room in the entire fortress. Which it is, of course.”