Downstairs, they had all the doors and windows nailed shut and boarded outside and in, and barricaded. Three rows of barricades, in fact, and with a little luck at least one of the back ways out would be left unguarded. There was a route out through the cellar that came up two doors down the street; with the city under siege Frank had lost his compunctions about knocking cellars through and taking advantage of the centuries-old excavations under the city. He'd wondered if there was any possibility of getting down into the catacombs, which he'd vaguely heard about but never seen. No one had any idea where they might be, or how one got into them, so he'd abandoned the idea. And it was too late now.
There were eight lefferti in the place, who'd decided their self-image required that they defend the one tiny oasis of American values that Rome held, or at least the one that they could hang out in regularly. Frank found that kind of funny. The main values his place stood for, looking at it from a practical point of view, were fast food and reasonably priced drinks. All run by a hippie kid from a West Virginia commune. Not quite the American Values that the high-school jocks had been so freaking keen on. Still, in his own biased opinion, good ones to stand up for. No one ever invaded a neighboring country to bring them pizza and beer. Maybe if they did, wars would be more civilized affairs.
Although the Geneva Convention would have to be rewritten to forbid anchovies. And Lite beer.
The lefferti were, at least, a calming influence at the moment. None of them wanted anyone to think he was anything other than the coolest of cool hands, for which Frank was grateful. They were all playing cards, Harry having introduced the young blades of Rome to the game of poker. The place might be turned upside down with every single exit boarded up, an invading army somewhere in the city outside and a sack about to happen some time in the next few hours, but it was hard to get really worked up when there was a bunch of guys having a quiet card game and sharing a jug or two of wine. Frank wished he hadn't decided that smoke from the chimney couldn't be risked. Firing up the oven and getting a round of pizzas on would be a good idea right now. No one seemed to be objecting to the fact that the provisions were nothing but bread and cheese and onions and cold sausage, but Frank knew that a hot meal would lift everyone's spirits. If they got to nightfall without the Spanish army descending on them, Frank decided, he'd fire up the oven when the darkness would cover the smoke.
For now, Frank was wondering whether it would be the boredom or the tension that would make him wig out first. Or sheer freaking tiredness. His eyelids were stinging, and felt sticky with sweat. There was a coppery taste in his mouth. For some reason, all the muscles up the left side of his back ached. The way his feet felt didn't bear thinking about. He wondered, a little dizzily, if he'd be able to sleep, and then decided that being seen to make the effort would help everyone else's nerves.
"Benito, spell me on watch, will you. I've been up all night."
"Sure." Benito's grin was cheeky and infectious. "You old guys gotta get your shut-eye."
Frank flipped him the bird as he hauled himself to his feet. He went over to the bar, grabbed a blanket from the stack they'd fetched down to use as blackout if things continued past nightfall, and clambered slowly up onto the bar. He pillowed his head on the folded blanket, tugged his cap down over his eyes, and set himself to the best imitation of a man unconcerned by events that he could manage.
Shortly, he was pretty certain that Spanish soldiers hadn't installed trapdoors all over the barroom, and knew that they couldn't spring up like jacks-in-the-box-or was it jack-in-the-boxes? It was vitally important that he remember. But he still had to stop them, but all he had was a big frying pan, from the kitchens, but he couldn't seem to swing it with any force and all it made the soldiers do was turn around for a moment and all the other guys would do was ask him to keep it down and "Frank! Frank! Wake up!" He felt Benito's hand on his arm, shaking him. He came wide awake with an electric jolt that left him feeling weak and rubbery as he half-slid, half-fell off the bar and stood rubber-legged looking around.
"What's up? What's going on?" he managed, realizing that the thing that had fallen to the floor was his hat. He bent to pick it up, grunting slightly as his back unstiffened. "How long was I asleep?"
"Since this morning. It's just after noon."
Frank blinked to clear his eyes and looked around to get a better idea of what was going on. Everyone in the room was up close to the windows, peering through. He looked at Benito, letting his expression ask the question.
"The Spaniards are here," Benito said, in what Frank realized was the loudest whisper he'd heard in a while.
His senses began catching up with what was going on. Somewhere, guns were being fired. A lot of guns. The rattling coughs of arquebuses and other small arms, and occasionally the boom of cannon. There was a general background that sounded like a crowd roar and some yelling. There was fighting in the city, pretty close by. It didn't sound like it was happening right out in the street, though.
"Here?" Frank asked, "Or right here?"
"Right here," Benito said, tugging at Frank's sleeve, "out in the street."
Frank cricked his neck a little. Sleeping on the bar, whatever it might have done for morale, had left him more than a bit stiff. He'd likely start aching in a moment, when he managed to wake all the way up. He started to shuffle over to the front, then stopped himself. Best not to look like he was half-dead. He hitched up his pants a little and managed a slightly more purposeful walk.
He found a vacant spot next to Dino, and peered out. After the cool dimness of the barroom, the street was eye-wateringly bright to his just-awakened eyes. He blinked a couple of times to clear them, and looked again. The other side of the street had five, no, six soldiers within his field of view. Four with muskets, leaning against the wall opposite with their weapons grounded, one guy with one of those broad-bladed spear things with the spikes on either side of the blades and one with a sword, who looked like an officer type. They were all looking right across the street at Frank's place, from maybe seven or eight yards away.
Frank looked away a moment, to murmur, "How long?" to Dino.
"A few minutes. Benito went straight to wake you up."
"Right." Frank looked back. The guy with the spear had moved away. Swiveling his eye around and looking at as much of the street as he could, Frank counted fifteen soldiers. That was along maybe twenty yards of street. This close to the front, the sounds of nearby fighting were a lot louder. If there were other guys moving around out there, Frank realized, no way was he going to track them by the sound of their boots.
And then a couple more guys with guns appeared and joined the ones across the street. They were more of the same, with the almost-in-uniform look to them that the few regular soldiers of the seventeenth century had when they weren't quite elite enough to be wearing some kind of special livery. Frank realized, and it wasn't a comfortable thought, that this meant someone had picked them out for special attention. They weren't just a random group of soldiers looking for easy pickings, a head start on the looting. Mercenaries after stuff to steal wouldn't come in this neighborhood at all, unless they were on the way somewhere else, and this bunch looked like they were here for a purpose. Frank didn't have to think too hard to figure out what that purpose was.