But Vincente did not bring it up or even aim it in his general direction. Instead, he walked briskly to the window.
As Owen helped up the last of the lefferti, he looked backward through the courtyard gate into the piazza. The once-bold rioters were fleeing past, running for their lives, no doubt driven off by the huge volley he had just heard from farther down the street. Damn it, there was no doubt left: the rescue attempt had been expected and was a failure. Now the only question was if they could escape before it became a full-fledged disaster.
Unfortunately, Owen had been hearing telltale signs that such a dire outcome might indeed be imminent. The discharges of the Wrecking Crew’s up-time arms were no longer coming from inside the Palazzo Giacomo, nor even near their planned entry-point on the roof; instead, they were dwindling, going back the way they had come.
Owen, knowing he’d get an argument he didn’t have the time for, turned to tell John the fight was over, and that he’d bodily drag the earl to safety, if he had to.
That was when Owen saw that the window above John O’Neill was opening. “John!” Owen shouted, and sprinted in his direction.
John replied with an annoyed “What?” Damn it, why does Owen have to start fussing at me while I’m loading this contraption? I just have to snap down the-there, locked. And loaded. As Harry always liked to say.
Finished, and feeling a great sense of pride, John swung the weapon upward-just in case the movement Gerald had seen at the window was something other than a prelude to the escape of Frank and Giovanna…
A figure was already in the window above. From which bright thunder roared down at the earl of Tyrone, the same kind of thunder that Harry’s shotgun made.
Driven down to his knees by a torrent of crushing, searing hammers that cut through his body in a dozen places, John O’Neill almost fell, but pulled himself upright again. He raised the pepperbox Another yellow-flaring thunder-bolt struck him down from above; the brief burst of excruciating pain it caused became sudden numbness.
So, John thought as he collapsed forward, that fellow in the window wasn’t Frank, after all.
Owen felt his throat constrict as he saw one of the last two princes of Ireland smashed to the ground by a second full load of double-aught buckshot from overhead. He emptied three chambers at the window-just as the dim figure there jerked back sharply.
Owen arrived at John’s side, already shouting orders. “Synnot, get over here. The rest of you, cover us.” With Synnot’s help, Owen got the mumbling, bleeding John O’Neill up off the ground. “We’re leaving,” he ordered through his tears. “Everyone: fighting withdrawal.”
Harry, blood coating his burning shoulder, noticed that the stock of the Remington was sticky and wet. As was his shirt. And the table upon which the rifle was resting. And the sandbags upon which it was stabilized. “Signor Lefferts, you not look so good,” said Benito.
Harry nodded, waved him toward the signal building. “Go over there. Tell them, ‘lights out.’ Send runners to order withdrawal.” After a moment, he gestured at the one remaining lefferto. “You go with him.” There was no point risking another youngster’s life by keeping him up here, since he didn’t really need spotters anymore.
As the two young men’s feet pounded down the stairs, Harry swayed back into the firing position, gritting his teeth as he set the stock into his brutalized shoulder. Through the scope, he could see Juliet running with the rest of the fleeing rioters but, being heavily built, she was quickly falling to the rear of the crowd.
Juliet was pumping her legs as fast as she could when there was a blast behind her. She went down, her left buttock apparently aflame. But no, it was just a pistol-shot through the thick of the flesh. Flesh, she allowed, of which she had plenty to spare. She struggled back to her feet, her lungs burning almost as badly as her rear end, and tried to resume running.
Sherrilyn, the last to cross the ladder, jumped off its last rung, turned, and pushed it down into the street. Covering her, Donald fired his shotgun at the distant belvedere, jacked another round into the chamber, jerked his head at the knotted line running down the front of the church. “You first,” he said.
“No: it’s my-”
“Sherrilyn, you’ve been first in and last out the whole way. Now give it a rest: git.” He fired another round at the belvedere; a short scream suggested that his shot had found its mark.
Sherrilyn started down the rope, feeling like some target at the country fair: Step right up and try your luck! Shoot the teacher off the rope! Three tries a dollar!
George, just below her, had stopped in mid-descent, looking-no, staring-down the street that ran the length of the western edge of the insula Mattei. The cords stood out on his suddenly flushed neck as he screamed, “Juliet! Juliet! ”
Sherrilyn turned, looked up the street, caught sight of a Spanish horseman, the scattering rioters, the litter of bodies, the distant but approaching Spanish infantry-and somehow, framed by it all, she saw the Spanish cavalryman who had shot Juliet gather his horse carefully and then spur it straight at her. He was smiling as he came. Smiling. Smiling as he rode her under, the hooves crushing and splitting and breaking the body that they churned through and over. And when she was a crumbled, barely moving lump of bloody flesh behind him, he turned in the saddle to look at her. And he was still smiling.
“JULIET!” screamed George, who slid down another ten feet, leaped from the rope, and landed off-center. He tumbled, came up like a gymnast and, loping badly, still sprinted in the direction of his stricken wife, screaming, again, “Juliet!”
Owen came out of the courtyard at a sprint, right behind the wounded Piero. He turned as he exited, grabbing a handful of what was left of the doors and pulled them shut: felt the thud as two musket balls hit them a moment later.
Owen turned-and found himself facing a cavalry charge.
Jayzus! “Fire what you have!” he shouted to the clustered Wild Geese. He raised his pistol and started squeezing off rounds. The sustained barrage from their pepperbox revolvers slowed the charge, the riders clearly baffled to encounter so steady a volume of fire from such a small group. But they came on, even so.
The next ten seconds seemed longer than most days Owen had lived through. Caught in a whirl of horses, blazing guns, and falling bodies, there was no time to give orders or even think. Owen dodged, fired, lost his grip on John, fired again, which sent a horse tumbling toward him. He scrambled away, saw a Spaniard loom out of the smoke and chaos, pistol raised, hammer falling. A flash, a boom-and Synnot, who was still close beside him, carrying John with one arm, went down with a bullet through his forehead. Owen brought his own gun to bear, fired back, and missed. But even so, the Spaniard spilled out of his saddle, albeit in the opposite direction from what Owen would have expected.
It made no sense, but Owen had no time to be puzzled; having spent the last three shots in the cylinder, he let the pistol fall on its lanyard, ready to draw steel. But, through the smoke, he saw the last three Spanish cavalrymen had already reversed, leaving five of their number behind. Only now did Owen register the more distant shots he had missed hearing during the melee, and which probably explained the mysterious demise of the last Spaniard he had faced. The rifles of the Hibernians and Harry had come to their aid like angels-angels of death, of course, but angels nonetheless.
He turned, looked for John, and discovered him pinned beneath a horse, inarguably dead. Probably had been from the first shotgun blast that had ripped down through his body. Only sheer animal vitality had kept him going after that.
Owen reached out, took a firm hold on the earl’s traveling cloak, just below the embroidered pattern of the Tyrones, and yanked hard. And again. On the third try, it came free, and clutching it as he waved his remaining men into their retreat, Owen wondered for whom have I taken this cloak? Who is left of the line of the O’Neills who might justly receive it? And if there are none such, then what good is it at all?