Meanwhile, his two men had jumped toward Ruy, who, sword trailing indolently, simply raised his immense up-time pistol and shot them down as they came. One fell limp, the other collapsed, holding his thigh and sobbing in a pitch as high as a woman’s.
Spotting Valentino approaching through the smoke, Ruy raised his gun again, fired, and dodged-just as Valentino did the same. Both missed; both now had empty pistols. Valentino cast his away; Ruy reholstered his primly, and drew a main-gauche for his off-hand.
Valentino walked through the smoke, heavy rapier in his right hand. The Catalan’s eyes flicked down to the assassin’s empty left. Valentino watched two opposed forces war very briefly in the bantam hidalgo’s eyes: practicality versus honor, he supposed. With something that might have been a shrug, Ruy resheathed his main-gauche. What Valentino thought was: strutting idiot. What he said was: “Are you ready to die now, old man?”
The Catalan now gave a true shrug. “I have always been ready to die.”
Valentino did not let Ruy complete the word “die” before he leaped to the attack. A quick pass-lunge, parry, riposte, slash, and lunge back-confirmed what he’d been told; although the bastard was old, his vitality and skill was undiminished. So, now to end it quickly Valentino came in again, leading with a long athletic leap and a thrust that he wrist-rolled- moulineted — into a shallow overhand cut. The Catalan stood his ground-as his style and pride predicted he would-and met him, blade pushing up against blade. For a moment, they were locked almost side by side: exactly the position that Valentino had been attempting to achieve. He shook his left forearm sharply: the scabbarded dagger that was strapped there slid down into his hand. And as the Catalan tries to stay at close range-with which he will attempt to diminish the advantage of my longer reach-I shall slip this between his ri A bright light exploded in Valentino’s right temple, staggering him. Peripherally, he saw the Catalan’s sword moving out of his field of view, lowering. He understood; the old fool was not such a fool after all-and not such a creature of sterling honor as he had been told. Rather than working with the blade, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz had fallen back on one of the most basic-and some would say base-tricks at the disposal of a swordsman: with his sword already raised point high, and close to his adversary, he had merely run it up along Valentino’s own blade, maintaining the lock with it until he slid it off. And slammed his sword’s half-basketed hilt into the larger man’s lowered head.
Valentino, aware that he had less than a second to recover, tried to buy himself time. He cut at the Catalan-who was no longer there. But, to Valentino’s great surprise, he heard movement behind-and then felt movement inside-himself. The point of the old man’s weapon emerged from his chest, snapping the sternum as it came out.
There were other cuts after that-two, Valentino thought-but he barely felt them. He was only aware that, as his hidden dagger fell from his hand, and he saw the floor coming up at him, the Catalan snorted out a sharp, derisive laugh. “Once a street thug, always a street thug,” he said a moment later, standing over the assassin. It might have been an epitaph.
At any rate, Valentino correctly conjectured, they were the last words he would ever hear.
Ignoring remonstrations and warnings from all around, Maffeo Barberini, who knew himself to be deeply unworthy of the office and title of Pope Urban VIII, moved quickly to the side of George Sutherland.
“My son,” he whispered forcefully.
The Englishman’s eyes fluttered open, moved about uncertainly: blind. The pale lips in his blood-clotted beard moved feebly.
“Who-?”
“It is I, the pope. I fear to ask it, that you might refuse, but-my son, would you take a blessing from me?”
“Why-why would I refuse, Father?”
“Because-well, what manner of Christian are you?”
George seemed to smile, brighten. “I’m a Christian of my own conscience, Father. I don’t…I don’t…I believe…”
And as George’s coughing of blood suddenly returned, and whole-torso spasms began to wrack his body, Urban VIII, tears starting from his eyes, commenced the speediest, yet most heartfelt rite of extreme unction that he had ever carried out.
Luke Wadding clutched his crucifix, kissed it, and felt his heart explode into a hundred “Our fathers” and “Hail Marys” for each of his companions, for surely, he hadn’t enough time left to say even one such prayer. Anthony McEgan, whose sturdy defense of the left flank of lightly armored Lieutenant Hastings had kept that worthy from death at least half a dozen times, was slow coming back from a riposte that wounded an enemy. The adjacent assassin swept out his cutlass, opened a nasty cut across McEgan’s right forearm. The Irishman snatched it back-at just the moment he needed it to protect against a hand axe wielded by a cutthroat who’d slipped into his left flank. The axe made a crunching sound as it caved in the lower left side of McEgan’s cuirass. The blow did not penetrate, but over the wounded man’s grunt, Wadding heard the snap of ribs. Hastings’ protector was thrown sideways, writhing as he fell.
The other assassins rushed to get in at the lieutenant, so eager that they bunched up, knocking together. Hastings, dripping sweat and blood from almost half a dozen wounds, was still alert enough to discern which of the assassins was too hemmed in by his mates to effectively parry. The tall Englishman slashed with his sword; the targeted cutthroat staggered back, now weaponless and clutching the stumps of three missing fingers.
But the remaining assassins continued pushing Hastings back, and still more came behind them.
Wadding wanted to close his eyes while he gave his cross a final kiss, but would not do so. I owe it to this man to watch his last sacrifice. I shall not look away; I shall not blink.
Larry Mazzare fired, cursed himself, fired again, heard a groan up the staircase, winced when a pistol discharged down in his general direction. The balls chipped the stone less than two feet from where he’d positioned himself, kneeling half-covered at the doorway, with a firing angle all the way up to the bend in the staircase.
He couldn’t see the bend, but he had a pretty good estimate of where it was. Like many priests and pastors in Appalachia, Larry was an experienced hunter-and his case, an excellent one, especially with a shotgun. Hunting pheasant, quail and turkey to put meat on impoverished tables and charity dinners in his parish had given him a passing acquaintance with aiming by sound as much as sight.
The assassins had tried rushing down twice now, and he’d sent up two rounds each time, ready to fire more-but that had broken their spirit. However, his ability to drive them back was now reduced to one round in the pepperbox, which had only five chambers. He turned to Antonio, who was, in a ghastly juxtaposition of activities, rifling through George’s pockets as the pope was gently sliding the big man’s eyes closed with his palm.
Trying not to sound impatient, Larry asked, “What have you found, Antonio?”
“Eh…eh, not much. Maybe most of them are under him. But it would take two of us to roll him over so-”
“Antonio. What have you found?”
Cardinal Antonio Barberini held up two shotgun shells, one in either hand. “These.”
Sherrilyn was already running for the kitchen door before Rolf had blasted down the last of the assassins who had rushed them, firing from a range of less than two feet.
Hobbling desperately, Sherrilyn pressed the magazine release, heard the empty box clatter down even as she had the other out, up, and into the grip in one smooth motion. She cocked the action, thanked the powers above for seventeen-round magazines, and staggered forward.
She found herself in a veritable obstacle course of enemy bodies: many motionless, many more writhing or crawling off in some deluded hope of escape. However, at least half a dozen live ones were preparing to carve up the last poor defender, who- Good god, that’s Hastings! She brought up the Glock and started squeezing off rounds, aiming as best she could, praying she wouldn’t hit the lieutenant, but knowing-knowing-that if she wasted one split second, he’d be dead anyway.