It wouldn't be long, anyway. They were getting a shot off every three or four minutes. Frank had no idea whether that was quick or slow for three guns, but they'd kept it up for two hours now. They'd only missed a few shots, and the ones that had hit had got in between the columns of the brick arches that made up the front of the ground floor of his place and smashed the woodwork out of its supports. Frank wasn't too happy about what was happening to the brickwork, either. He wasn't an engineer, but there was one column that looked like it had had most of its outer face smashed away. And this building had been standing hundreds of years on those columns; Frank wasn't sure about how well they'd hold up with one of them shot away and all the others battered by a couple of dozen cannonballs.
Piero coughed on the falling dust. It was pretty constant now, although when the cannons hit they produced a massive shower. Which was damn strange, actually. Given how much housework Giovanna had them all doing upstairs, it wasn't like there was any dust left in the place. "Seems like cannon are harder to aim than they look, eh?" he said.
"Looks like," Frank said. "That makes, what, three or four misses?"
"I count five, with that. I don't like the look of that wall, either."
"I was wondering about that, too." Piero's presence was helping a lot. If he'd been on his own, he'd have gone completely nuts by now. One or two prisoners, the captain had said, and they'd decided on two. Piero was the only other realistic candidate. The Inquisition had to have Frank, no question. Of everyone who was left, Piero was the one with the most family connections and money and so had the best chance of getting off with the aid of a good lawyer and a little luck, probably with no more than a dose of intimidation by being shown a fully stocked torture room. Which was, apparently, standard procedure before questioning anyone. Piero planned to confess to a couple of years' worth of drunkenness, adultery and general misbehavior to keep them from torturing him because they suspected he was hiding something. He'd joked that if he was lurid enough in the details he could get the Inquisition to boot him out just to keep him from killing the priests with jealousy.
Piero took a swig of wine. "I could wish it was safe to step out in the street and surrender."
"We'd get shot. Whoever that inquisitor is, he got those guys with the muskets plenty stirred up." Most of the day had passed with no more than a desultory few volleys of fire from across the street, which had scattered a few splinters of glass and wood about the place and served to keep everyone's heads down. But being mostly out of sight of officers and not being in any position to do much other than waste ammo, the soldiers had settled into a rhythm of a shot every few minutes, apparently more for looks' sake rather than anything else. When the cannon opened up, the musketeers had stopped for a little while, and for a few minutes after the rest of the guys had gotten safely hidden upstairs Frank and Piero had considered going out and surrendering in the street so they didn't have to endure any more cannonballs crashing into the front of the bar.
Then someone-or something-had made them go into high gear. There seemed to be more of them over there, too. From a shot every few minutes it went to two or three a minute, with occasional flurries that had Frank and Piero forgetting the nonchalance they were trying to display and crouching behind the invitingly solid bulk of the bar. Even the regular rate of shooting put paid to the notion of going out there. If nothing else, the sight of any movement in here would attract every would-be Hawkeye across the street.
Same with the stable yard, which had a lot less cover and was overlooked by all of the buildings across the street. There was maybe three or four feet out front where a shooter on the roof opposite couldn't get them.
Piero sighed between musket shots. "I know. What is keeping them? Surely even a Spanish soldier could make his way through what is left of your front wall? My great uncle Pierpaolo could get through some of those gaps, and he is famous for eating six meals a day."
"Maybe they want to see a hole in-"
Frank winced and hunkered down some more as another cannon-shot sounded, and this time hit the front of the building. A brief cacophony of bangs and crashes and a gentle shower of wood splinters and chips of brick told Frank that the thing had ricocheted inside the taverna. It sounded like someone had taken the entire contents of the building up to the roof and tipped the lot four storeys down on to the cobbles in one go, and finished with the sound of breaking glass.
"Shit," he said, with feeling, once he was sure the little lump of hot iron had stopped bouncing around. "Second time that's happened."
He risked a peek, surveying the piles of furniture in the main bar room area. There was just enough light to tell that what had already been a messy heap had now been stirred up and trashed even more. As he watched, a pile that had been tottering gave way, either knocked askew or with some crucial support smashed out. Another crash, this time a little less flinch-inducing. It looked like the cannonball had left through one of the windows to the yard; there was a little more light from the evening sky filtering in that way now. The next musket ball came by uncomfortably close, no more than eighteen inches above his head, and Frank ducked back down, his pulse suddenly hammering in his ears and his mouth full of the cold coppery taste of fear. Clearly he'd been visible, the movement maybe. Missing by eighteen inches was about par for what they were able to do with those weapons at fifteen, twenty yards, Frank recalled. So clearly they'd been aiming at him, not at the light at the other end of the bar.
Sure enough, whatever it was that periodically put a wild hair up the asses of the musketeers started biting again, and a ragged volley of shots passed over Frank's head, and he heard the dull tock-tock-tock of rounds hitting the wood of the bar. Thank God for cheap carpentry, he thought. They'd saved on building the bar by doing it themselves. The counter itself had been installed by a pro, but the structure of the thing was something he and Salvatore had knocked together themselves using the parts from a couple of old, heavy tables they'd found when they moved in. The things had been something like the picnic tables Frank had known back in Grantville, except without the gaps between the planks, which were three or four inches thick. If I'd known, I'd have bought some sheet iron for 'em, he thought to himself.
"I don't think those fellows like you all that much," Piero said, and the mournful tone in his voice gave Frank a fit of the giggles.
"You think? I thought it was just the guys with the cannon who were pissed at me."
"No, those fellows are just crude in their wooing, Frank," Piero said, deadpan, and then, in the faggiest falsetto he could manage, "Look what a big gun I've got, Frank, let me fire it for you!"
Frank knew he shouldn't, but he laughed anyway. What the hell, he was three hundred years away from Gay Rights, or whatever it was. And probably going to die anyway, a little voice at the back of his mind added. He laughed long and loud, and hoped the musketeers across the road could hear him. Even if they did, they slacked off the fire a little.
Which meant that he heard the creaking start. "You hear that, Piero?" he asked.
Frank could hear Piero swallow nervously before he answered. "A kind of groaning noise?"
"I was thinking creaking," Frank said, wondering how in hell he was managing to fix on something so freaking trivial at a time like this. "I'm also thinking that this place isn't going to take much more punishment before it falls down. You want to take a look, see what you think? I think they're watching for me to poke my head up here."
Which was true enough. But more to the point, Frank wasn't sure he could get up again, he was fast coming to realize. He'd tried to will his legs to stand up under him so he could poke his head over the bar, and found they wouldn't budge. He felt down each trouser-leg while Piero was risking a glance, and came up dry. He hadn't been shot. So this is what it feels like, Frank thought, being too terrified to move. He didn't feel like he was a gibbering wreck at all. In fact, he felt quite clear-headed. And he knew what he had to do, or ought to do, at least. He just couldn't make himself do it. He decided he'd shift a bit away from the position he'd been in, and found he could move quite handily if he didn't think about getting up. There was nothing wrong with his legs.