"Sorry, guys," said Mike. "Can't help you." He glanced at his watch, turning his wrist to bring the dial into the light thrown by the gas lantern hanging at the entrance to the field tent. "Yeah, what I thought. It's two o'clock in the morning. The preliminaries are over. Time for the main program."
He grinned down at the three aggrieved youngsters. "All that other stuff," he waved, "was just the warm-up. Now we'll get to the real psychological warfare."
They stared up him, uncomprehending. Mike's grin widened.
"Becky put it together," he explained.
At that moment, the sounds of a very different music erupted over the hillside. The three boys standing in front of him flinched.
"Jesus," whined Jimmy. "What is that?"
A few feet away, Frank Jackson laughed. "And you thought your stuff was 'out there'!" Frank shook his head. "Forget it, boys. Becky's about ten times smarter than you, and she's got all those centuries to pick from."
He cocked his head, listening. "Horrible stuff, ain't it?"
Mike pursed his lips. "It's pretty good, actually. If you listen to it in the right frame of mind."
Frank chuckled. "That's just the accommodating husband speaking, Mike. Like me pretending nuoc mam don't taste like rotten fish."
Jackson twitched his head. "I hope there ain't much of this selection. Gross violation of the rules of war, what it is."
Mike smiled. "Just a few minutes. Even Becky'll admit that a little of Berg's Wozzeck goes a long way."
To the Spanish soldiers in the Wartburg, the eerie cacophony of Wozzeck seemed to last a very long time. The soldiers crammed into the castle were filled with anxiety. For two hours, now, they had been subjected to that incredible aural bombardment. For the soldiers standing on the ramparts, it had been even worse. The blinding glare of the spotlights which Ferrara and his teenage "tech warriors" had jury-rigged, sweeping endlessly back and forth across the castle, added visual assault as well.
As always with Spanish armies, the troops were accompanied by officials of the Holy Office of the Inquisition. Ten priests, now standing on the ramparts alongside the soldiers, hissed their fury.
Fury-and fear. The Spanish branch of the Inquisition, which answered only to the crown of Spain, was an order of magnitude more vicious and unrestrained than the Papal Inquisition. But they were by no means mindless thugs. The Spanish Inquisition had developed secret police techniques to a level of sophistication which would not be surpassed until the Tsarist Okhrana of the late nineteenth century. By the standards of the seventeenth century, they were considered the unrivaled practitioners of what a later age would call "psychological warfare."
They had just met their master. Their mistress, rather. It was a pity, perhaps, that they did not understand the historical irony involved. A young woman from the cursed race which the Inquisition had hounded for two centuries was about to pay them back in full measure. Her own intelligence, coupled to the entire musical tradition of a later Western world, would complete the task which rock and roll and country-western had begun.
The selection from Wozzeck ended. As the next piece began blaring in the night, the Inquisitors heaved a small sigh of relief. At least this music-whatever it was-had some logic.
Their relief lasted not more than a minute. There is a logic to Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain, true enough. But it was not a logic which appealed to them. Neither did the grinding, ominous strains of the same composer's "Bydlo" from Pictures at an Exhibition.
Rebecca built from there. Grieg's short, sharp, thunderous "In the Hall of the Mountain King" came next. As the popularity of that portion of Peer Gynt grew, over the years after its composition, Grieg himself had come to detest the thing. "The worst kind of Norwegian bombast," he once called it. But on that night, the savage Nordic triumphalism of the piece served Rebecca's purpose well enough.
Tremble, lords of the dungeon! Trolls and Vikings are at your door!
A Russian variation on the theme followed. The heroic choral strains of "Arise, ye Russian People" from Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky filled the air, succeeded immediately by the driving fury of "The Battle on the Ice." On the ramparts of the castle above, the Spanish variation of the Teutonic Knights suffered, in their minds, the same disaster which had befallen the butchers of Pskov centuries earlier on the real ice of Lake Chud.
The Inquisitors tried to dispel their own growing terror by driving their soldiers into action. Shrieking and bellowing, they forced shivering Spanish arquebusiers to the ramparts. Dragging them by the neck, in some cases, ordering them to fire at the Satanic music and spotlights.
Given the inaccuracy of arquebuses, the command was foolish enough. Given the accuracy of the weapons in the hands of the devils in the darkness, it was sheer folly.
"Take them out!" commanded Mike. He studied the ramparts through the binoculars. The spotlights were now focused on the priests and soldiers lined along the battlements, illuminating them clearly. "Aim for the inquisitors!"
Alexander Nevsky ended, immediately replaced by the conclusion of Prokofiev's Piano Concerto no. 3. The wild exuberance of the music from the third movement served as a backdrop for the rambunctious enthusiasm of the U.S. snipers. Julie Sims was not among their number, true. But if Julie was the best sharpshooter in the U.S. army, there were many other very fine ones. Within two minutes, all of the Spanish soldiers had retreated from the battlements. They left behind twenty of their own dead-and seven inquisitors.
"A daft breed," grumbled Lennox. He and Mackay had tried to seek shelter from the auditory storm in the HQ tent. To no great avail, as loudly as Harry was playing the music. "A guid thing I slept earlier. Get nae sleep now."
Alex shrugged. " 'Tis better than rap music."
Lennox snorted. "Anyt'in' is better'n tha' crap!"
Another piece blared over the loudspeakers. Lennox flinched.
Mike, seeing the motion out of the corner of his eye, turned his head and grinned.
"That's from something called The Rite of Spring," he explained. "Becky's real fond of it."
"Glad she's no my wife," muttered Lennox under his breath. "Even if t'lass does look like Cleopatra."
Mackay smiled. He stepped forward, coming alongside Mike at the tent's entrance.
"I'm curious," he said. "Rebecca's been with you lunatics for not much more than a year." Alex gestured into the darkness with his chin. "So how has she managed to learn so much of your music?"
Mike shrugged. "Beats me. Her father helped, of course. Balthazar's gotten to be a fanatic about classical music. Says he's sick to death of stupid lutes." He hesitated, torn between pride and a desire not to seem like a doting husband. But, since he was both proud of his wife-fiercely proud-and a doting husband, the struggle was brief.
"I don't know, Alex. How she managed that, along with all her reading, and everything else? I just don't know." His chest swelled. "The only thing I know for sure is that Becky's the smartest person I've ever met. Or ever will, I imagine."
Mackay nodded. "True enough. Still-"
He froze. "What is that?"
Mike listened, for a moment, to the sound of Leontyne Price's powerful soprano. Then, laughed. "Don't you like it? It's called the 'Liebestod.' By a guy named Wagner."