"Are they? A man, two hundred yards away, in the dark, with fires there"-he pointed toward one side of the fort-"and there"-he pointed to the other-"to dazzle their eyes? I think not, Senor Simpson. In this place, senor, we are in the safest place in Rome this evening."
Put like that, it did make a twisted kind of sense. There was the old joke about walking confidently with a piece of paper in your hand. Tom hadn't ever tried it, and suspected that like a great many such things that "everyone" knew, it was a lot of hooey. Still "I hope you know what you're doing," he muttered as he followed Ruy up the steps.
"A' ken richt weel whit he's deein,' " Tom heard from behind him. "Bein' a mad bampot Spaniard, like always." It did nothing for Tom's confidence that the Marine who'd said it had known Ruy a lot longer than he had.
Ruy had got out of sight briefly at the top of the steps, and when Tom got to the top and saw what Ruy was doing, it was all he could do not to turn tail and flee, gibbering in terror. Ruy was striding across the esplanade, looking up at the battlements of one of the corner bastions where the wall was a little lower, maybe twenty feet, and waving his hat.
From above, a helmet was just visible, peering down at the apparent lunatic making a one-man, unarmed assault without a ladder on a battlemented fortress wall. There was a musket up there, and even in the dim light Tom could see that it wasn't leveled. Yet.
"Hello the fort!" Ruy called out, in what sounded like the Roman dialect of Italian that Tom had been hearing about the place this last couple of weeks.
Tom couldn't quite catch what got shouted back, being a few yards behind the lunatic Catalan and more occupied with looking around for the small horde of Spanish soldiers who were, he was sure, going to come thundering into view at any moment to do for the pair of them.
He heard Ruy's response, though. "My name is Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz. I'm here to rescue the pope. Please lower a rope!"
Tom groaned. The least they could expect now was to learn some Swiss swearwords. He strained his ears for the sound of muskets being cocked, peered into the shadows between the battlements for the glow of matches being blown on for a shot. He had maybe three, four paces to go and if he dived down the steps he probably wouldn't suffer more than minor scrapes and bruises.
Whatever the answer actually was, and again Tom didn't quite catch it, Ruy turned and smiled. "Did I, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, not counsel faith? A humble trust in divine providence? He has gone to fetch an officer."
"He needs orders to shoot us?"
Ruy shrugged. "This they will not do. We are no threat. If there is an assault sent from across the bridge, then they will shoot us. For now, we are simply two men outside the walls. We are no threat, nor likely to be one."
"Can't you get them to open a gate for us?" Tom said, not liking the idea of climbing a rope to get up over that wall. Right here they were in fairly deep shadow, cast along the wall by the corner bastion from the bonfire further along the riverbank. They'd have to go into the light some to reach the door at the midpoint of the wall, but it looked like an easier bet all round than trying to get over the wall just here.
"It will be barricaded. They will suspect a trick if we insist on that being opened," Ruy said. "Besides, what cause have you to complain? You are young, and strong. I am the aged and infirm member of this party."
"Aged and infirm maybe," Tom muttered, "but with the mind of a teenager."
There was movement above, and a shout of " Who did you say you were?"
"Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, and with me is Signor Thomas Simpson of the Embassy of the United States of Europe. We are here to rescue His Holiness." Ruy was now standing right in the shadows under the wall, practically invisible even from five feet away where Tom was standing. Method in his madness, Tom thought.
The madness part had been spotted by whoever was on top of the wall. Tom didn't quite catch all of the idiom, but he figured "madder than a hatful of assholes" was probably a fair translation.
"Precisely!" Ruy shouted back, "No one will be expecting it! May we come in and discuss the matter like gentlemen, or will you keep us out here all night like unwelcome peddlers?"
A shout came back that they should wait. A few nervous minutes later and a pair of thick ropes dropped over the wall.
"See?" Ruy said, grabbing a rope and bracing one boot against the wall to begin the climb. "Now for the difficult part."
"Getting out alive?" Tom said, giving the rope an experimental tug. It seemed to be securely attached. It better be, given what he weighed.
"No," Ruy said, between grunts of effort. "Persuading His Holiness to come with us."
It would pretty much figure that the pope would be as nuts as everyone else was acting tonight and want to stay in here. He's nuts? Tom Simpson, you're going in there with him. "Right," Tom said, and began to climb.
Chapter 41
Rome
"I cannot believe that just worked," Tom said, as he hauled himself over the parapet onto the lower battlement of the Bastion of St. John of the Castel Sant'Angelo. "Did someone forget to pay the reality bill?"
That got him a whole series of frowns. From Ruy, because he'd used an idiom that wouldn't mean squat for about three hun-well, maybe a hundred years, if electricity caught on here the way it had up-time. From about a dozen suspicious-looking Swiss Guards, a really suspicious-looking Swiss Guard officer and several incredibly suspicious-looking priests, because he'd said it in English, and they didn't appear to understand the language. All of the guards were armed; halberds, slung matchlock muskets and each with his own individual assortment of close-quarter mayhem. Plus grenades. He noticed that Ruy was very ostentatiously keeping his hands well clear of his weapons, and he did the same. "Hi!" he said, brightly and with a big smile. "Tom Simpson, pleased to meet you," he added, almost certain he'd mangled the Italian he'd switched to.
The Swiss Guard officer nodded. "Adolf Weisser, and it is an honor to meet you also, Signor Simpson. I understand you are one of the Americans who are said to be from the future? For the moment I take it on trust that you gentlemen are who you claim to be."
"I am, although these days I'm from the United States of Europe," he said. "Has Senor Sanchez already asked for an audience with the Holy Father?"
"I had not," Ruy said, "but this is indeed why we are here."
"I do not see that this is a good idea," Weisser said. "This man is a Spaniard, and while you claim to be one of the Americans, I have no way of knowing if what you say is true. An assassin, at this time, would spare those outside our walls a great deal of trouble."
"I understand your problem," Tom said. "Have you heard about the technical marvels we Americans are capable of?"
"I have," one of the priests said, not bothering to introduce himself.
Tom decided the man was probably an inquisitor, or whatever branch of the church it was that did the pope's spying for him. He'd boned up a little on the distinctive dress of the various religious orders within the Catholic Church and from the looks, this guy was a Jesuit. "If I could just show you one or two things, I think I can prove I'm not with the Spanish army. For what it's worth, Senor Sanchez here is married to Dottoressa Nichols, our ambassadora to the Holy See, and the prime minister of the United States, Michael Stearns, is my brother-in-law. Now," he dug in his pocket, "see here-"
They'd anticipated this problem during the brief-very brief-planning session they'd had before riding back to Rome. As well as getting a short message from Cardinal Barberini that would identify them to the pope-committed to memory, as it would work pretty well for anyone who captured the message-Tom had picked up a few items that they had had among the embassy party that were unquestionably up-time in origin. A solar-powered four-function calculator, a little flashlight whose batteries were currently charged courtesy of a great deal of sweat from one of the radio guys and the pedal generator that usually went to working the radio, and his own personal shotgun. Originally belonging to Dan Frost, it was a real hit with the Swiss Guards, who politely asked to see it fire. Tom had brought a whole satchelful of rounds for it, some of the first coming out of the new munitions works at Suhl producing percussion-cap rounds for the private market, and let off three cartridges of buckshot in the general direction of the Spanish army by way of demonstration.