Page 5

Chapter Five

This part of Rome is right next to the fighting, but it dies down in late morning, and the city continues its business. No one is going anywhere. The shops take customers. Church doors open. People talk.

They say; Georg Von Frundsberg had a stroke in Modena. Constable Bourbon—Duke Charles III—got command of both armies with no money to feed them. He promised twenty thousand men Roman spoils and the head of the Pope for Luther’s glory. He told them they could do what they wanted inside these walls.

They say; Rome is fortified. This has happened all the time. Even a month ago, in fact. Pope Clement paid them off and it was done.

They say; The Swiss Guard is the best in the world. Clement will negotiate. The Empire’s twenty thousand may be hungry, but who would risk Hell for murdering a Pope?

When the bath is hot again, I sit in it by myself and wonder if I should tell Jacqueline I saw her uncle get shot and fall off the wall.

If he survived the fall, the bullet killed him.

If not from blood loss, then from the lead in the slug.

She’s past forgiving me for breathing. Witnessing the death of her favorite uncle—one who promised an army the bodies and blood of Roman women—won’t put me in a worse position with her.

But… Laro.

If she takes him, I could easily win the right to have him in my house, but what life is this for a child? What can I provide for him? A crumbling estate? A worthless title? Money? An education?

Nothing. Same as now. Nothing.

I miss him.

The fog attenuates the sound of fighting. I can’t tell if it’s louder or closer, but it should have been done already. The Papal seat is known for paying off attacking hoards within hours, sometimes days if Clement is feeling stubborn.

There’s a shout from the street. A barked prayer, cut off mid-vowel. I bolt from the bath and, with my feet still in the water, lean out the window.

One of the nuns clutches her robe closed as three men wrestle her down. The front of her habit is ripped already. They’re shouting and growling in French as she cries for mercy in Latin.

Rushing out of the bath, I pad naked into the drawing room where Agata and Paolina lean out the window.

“Leave her alone, you animal!”

“Get away!” I yank Paolina back with one hand and grab my arquebus with the other. It’s already loaded. “Don’t let them see you.” Agata is about to argue, but I silence her with a look. “Where’s Tinoro?”

“He went down.” Paolina points down toward the street. “This was supposed to be over by noon.”

Tinoro is down there in a fistfight over a woman with a torn habit who is making the sign of the cross instead of running away. Paolina tries to arch herself over my back to see outside.

Before I can answer, there’s pounding at the door.

“Captain!” the innkeeper cries, pounding again.

Isabella’s a busybody with three sons in the Papal army.

She insists on calling me by a rank I resigned.

She’s never hit the door this hard for someone whose bills are paid.

“You have to leave. They breached the wall at Ianiculum. We have to go to the tunnels!”

More shouting from outside. Tinoro trying to save that poor woman.

Isabella’s lived here her whole life. She wouldn’t tell us to go unless it was serious.

“One moment,” I call to Isabella before turning to Paolina. “Get dressed, all of you. Bring only what you can fit in your pockets and a sack of bread.”

I don’t wait for her to agree. She cares about her survival more than her pride.

On the street below, there are seven of them now. Two are on the nun. Tinoro is putting up a good fight, but there are three on him. The last two are punching through the convent window.

I can’t shoot all of them. It takes forty seconds to reload properly, and I only have a few pellets. I wish this thing shot fire so I could burn these animals to death.

If I aim at the attackers, I might kill the nun.

The men fighting Tinoro are moving too much.

“Carmine!” Paolina shouts, stuffing a sack with all the bread on the table. She slides a cheese knife into her belt. God bless this woman.

I light the slow fuse on a candle. Paolina snaps it away from me.

“What are you doing?”

“You can’t light the matchlock and aim at the same time, you fool of a man.” She smiles with one side of her mouth.

“Fine.” I aim. “Right in the ass.”

She places the fuse in the lock. I pull the trigger and the gunpowder lights. He falls, bent in half over the window opening. Everything stops. All eyes look up, except Tinoro, who hits one of the men with a brick. I duck behind the wall and see inside the room. My girls are ready.

The innkeeper is holding a sack in one hand and holding up a cheese knife with the other. Her eyes drift down. I’m still naked from the bath.

“We’re not waiting for you to dress yourself.” She wields the knife as if she’s going to gut me for stopping her.

There’s no time for regret or apologies. I can’t stay and fight to let them go unprotected.

“Go.” I grab a pair of trousers. “We’ll meet you down there.”

The next time I breathe, I smell Rome burning.

Tinoro’s a little beat up when he finds me in the basement. I bite his split lip and he punches me in the chest with a laugh.

“We should have left this morning.” I have to walk sideways down the narrow stone staircase.

“You should have put on a shirt.” My friend heaves the door shut and scuttles down.

I hand him the rifle so I can pull out the shirt I stuffed in the back of my pants. “It was putting on a shirt or getting pellets.”

“You’ll kill us all with that thing.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

He laughs for the last time.