He tried to stand up again, and couldn't. Even the thought of doing it made him feel nauseated, now, and his legs shook in their rebellion at what Frank was trying to make them do. And there was a constant whine of musket balls overhead and the occasional hammer-blow of a ball into the front of the bar to remind him of why this was so.
Piero grunted a swearword and sat down heavily on the floor. The musket-fire shifted over to his spot, and that wild hair seemed to have gotten back up the musketeers. It was like being in a giant popcorn-maker for a few seconds. When it settled down, Piero called softly "You okay, Frank?"
So he'd noticed Frank shuffling about. "Yeah, just getting comfortable," he said, and blushed at the lie. In the dark, Piero saw nothing. Frank hoped like hell his voice wouldn't give him away. "What'd you see?" he asked.
"One of the pillars, to the left of the door, looks like it's about to give way. That last shot must've knocked out a big lump, there's about four, five bricks left right now, and the top part is leaning over. I think I see the ceiling sagging down some."
Frank found his mouth going dry and his stomach churning. He needed the bathroom, and needed it real bad. He'd read an Edgar Allan Poe story when he was a kid, about some guy who got bricked up in a wall, and ever since then the thought of getting buried or shut in had creeped him out completely. Having it happen on top of an entire day of getting shot at was moving Frank's mental needle clear over to "wig out." He couldn't stop himself whimpering a little. Get a grip, Frank. "What about the guys upstairs?" he wondered aloud.
There was a long pause from Piero. Frank took comfort from the fact that the thought of the ceiling coming down was getting to Piero too. Finally, Piero said, "Frank, at this time and in this place, sorry specimen of Christian charity that I am, I could not give a fuck about the guys upstairs. Their corpses will be on top of the wreckage."
Frank thought he heard Piero's voice catch on the word corpses. Then he realized something else. "Hey, when did we last get shot at?"
"You're right. Maybe it's about to be over." The sheer hope and yearning in Piero's voice almost made Frank laugh out loud.
A loud and violent crunch, followed by a really loud creak interrupted the moment of good humor. And then there were loud, popping cracks, as of big pieces of timber splitting and breaking.
"Piero, cellar! Now! It's going!"
Piero was moving before Frank was done yelling, and made it into the mouth of the cellar stairwell before Frank had properly got his legs under him. They'd planned to retreat here if the musket fire got too intense, if it started coming through the wood of the bar. They hadn't figured to shelter in it if the place collapsed around their ears. Frank made it in to the mouth of the stairwell just as the noises stopped. He checked to make sure that the stairwell was still a solid brick construction, thanked any gods that might be around for medieval standards of design- if in doubt, overbuild -and peered around to see what the rest of the building was doing. The ceiling at the front of the bar was now sagging to four feet lower in the middle than it was at the sides. Some of the brickwork out front was still standing, but it looked like the collapse of the ceiling had knocked some of the pillars out. In fact, there was a huge pile of rubble out there, illuminated by something burning. Silhouetted by it, in fact. Frank hoped like hell that it was just a whole bunch of torches. If this neighborhood caught fire, they were all dead if the Spanish weren't real, real understanding about letting people escape.
There's an inquisitor out there, dummy. Probably call it God's Will and a great saving in firewood if we burn to death of natural causes. Frank realized that the little voice in the back of his mind was back. Good timing. Great timing.
"Are they beginning the assault?" Piero asked, real hope in his voice.
That better not be because you're looking forward to a fight, Frank thought. "Can't tell," he said out loud, listening carefully. "Even if I could understand Spanish, I can't make out what they're yelling at each other."
"Sounds like proper military shouting," Piero observed, and Frank quietly agreed that it did have that kind of sergeant-like flavor that jocks loved to imitate so much.
On the other hand…
"I can't tell if it's 'line up you guys and storm that building' or 'line up you guys and wait while we toss a couple grenades in there.' I reckon the difference could be important."
"Grenades?" Piero spat. "Filthy weapons."
Frank couldn't help but be amused. When all was said and done he reckoned violence and weapons were pretty much all as bad as each other, and the people who made them necessary didn't have much cause to complain if the other guy turned out to be more fiendishly inventive when it came to dishing out the pain and misery. Right up until the roof started collapsing he'd been thinking that he'd been in with a fair chance of ending this with nobody else getting hurt, and as such was ahead of the game. "You reckon?" he said, looking back at where Piero was displaying an authentic lefferto scowl. "Me, I think dead is dead. And from their point of view, tossing a couple of grenades in here would be a good way for them not to get hurt so bad, what with marching into a notorious nest of bloody-handed revolutionists and all."
"True," Piero said. "But right now I don't feel like seeing the other fellow's point of view."
Frank listened again. The shouting was still going on, and the firelight was moving about in a way that suggested torches. Frank had seen people lighting their way along the streets with the things and recognized the way they made the shadows shift and dance. It was one of the regular sights in a poor neighborhood such as this one, after dark.
That was a relief. They weren't going to burn to death. There was still no shooting, which was another.
"Reckon we can surrender now? Trying to defend a building that's falling down strikes me as hopeless enough that they'll respect us for giving in before they have to come in and get us."
"Has to be worth a try," Piero said. "How are we going to do this?"
"Let's keep it simple," Frank said, and cupped his hands around his mouth. "We surrender!" he yelled, hoping like hell someone out there could understand his Italian. He got up and walked toward the front of the barroom. "We surrender!" he yelled again, looking nervously at the sagging ceiling, which picked that moment to creak forebodingly. None of you guys hiding upstairs better move suddenly, he thought. And then, in one of those thoroughly helpful contributions from his Inner Pessimist, and loud noises can start avalanches, can't they?
He got near the front, picking his way though the mangled and shattered furniture, and yelled again. There was a sudden stop to the shouting outside. "Say that again," a distant shouted voice from outside called.
"We surrender!" Frank yelled back. "The building is about to collapse!"
There was a long silence, long enough for Piero to make it up next to Frank. "What'd he say?" he whispered.
"Just asked me to repeat it," he whispered back. "He hasn't answered yet, though."
"If they accept, let me go first," Piero said.
"Why?"
"You, they may shoot out of hand. Stay behind me until we are among them. They may not shoot if they do not realize who you are until too late."
"Uh, right," Frank said. There were any number of holes in that argument, not least of which was that if they were going to be shooting captives out of hand they wouldn't be getting picky. That Don Vincente guy had said there was an inquisitor trying to run the show for him out there, and wasn't it the Inquisition who'd come up with Kill them all, God will know his own? Besides, if they wanted to make sure Frank was dead, all they had to do was wait. Maybe toss in a couple of grenades to help matters along a bit. Something cracked in the timbers above, and the ceiling shifted a little, causing a shower of dust and grit. Frank could hear it pattering around him on the floor and on the broken furniture.