Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart - By Jesse Bullington Page 0,115
lips. “Wise enough.”
Manfried circled the contraption and then went around the side to the kitchen door after foiling Al-Gassur’s attempt to lag behind. Hegel reminded the men watching the back door of what befell thieves, and Barousse added that shortly all would set sail with far more riches in their coffers. In the dining room, Sir Jean’s attempt to bribe Rodrigo had earned him a bloody nose. Despite his manners and fine clothes Rodrigo was not of noble or landed stock, and so naturally he hated those who were.
The guards likewise despised Sir Jean for his fortuitous birth and homeland but, unlike the frazzled Rodrigo and the belligerent Grossbarts, their fear grew with each insult the noble weathered and each blasphemy Martyn spoke. The guards and Sir Jean both believed the day would end with all of their necks in nooses unless a miracle transpired.
XXI
The Conflagration of Desires
An hour before sunset fifty pikemen relieved their compatriots outside the captain’s gates. Two of Barousse’s men nervously waited until a spokesman for the doge arrived, offering them amnesty if they peacefully admitted the doge’s force if and when such an order came down. This was the offer the mercenaries had agreed would buy their surrender after hearing of the cardinal’s murder, wanting no part of the inevitable massacre. The leader of the doge’s pikemen insisted they were positioned only to prevent escape, but to prove their loyalty Barousse’s men hastened to inform him of Buñuel’s passing. Not caring a jot for some French brat and doubting the doge did either, the pikemen demanded admittance at once. A guard hurried to unlock the gate when an arrow fired from one of the house’s windows struck his traitorous leg and he went down howling. Then everything soured and to this day Venetians whisper that in the time that followed the eyes of God averted from Venezia.
Hearing a scream from the front, Barousse released the lever on the trebuchet, and the Grossbarts cheered as the anchor, coins, and cardinal soared into the setting sun. Rodrigo hurried about the second floor, having already doused every room of the first with oil. The mercenaries who had guarded the chevalier took shots from the room formerly occupied by the Grossbarts, Sir Jean and Martyn watching the catapult from the terrace.
Sir Jean stared in shock, his urge to flee around the house forgotten at the sight of Barousse’s nerve. The trio of crossbowmen with them on the terrace let out three shouts and three shots as pikemen flooded around the stable side of the house. Martyn fled inside and Sir Jean followed, terrified he might be caught between crossbow volleys or cut down by his rescuers before they identified him.
From the window one of the guards hurled an oil lamp at those swarming the front door, setting several ablaze and then catching a bolt between his eyes. He pitched foreward on the sill while the other two mercenaries retreated to the hall, the doge ordering an abundance of archers to make up for his earlier error. The two remaining guards saw Rodrigo rushing down the hall, laughing nervously.
The ground quaked under the Grossbarts’ feet from the counterweight’s impact, the hastily constructed catapult ripping apart and collapsing behind them. With the first step toward the house Al-Gassur realized he would be overtaken by the pikemen, so, snatching out his dagger, he cut the binding on his mock-lame leg, threw the crutch over his shoulder, and dashed after his masters.
On the raised terrace Barousse’s crossbowmen fired a second round but similarly armed members of the doge’s force responded in kind. Two of the mercenaries collapsed, riddled with shafts, but the third had ducked inside for a lamp to hurl. Coming up the terrace stairs with Hegel in the lead, the Grossbarts were each struck with several bolts. The quarrels bounced off Manfried’s shoulders and Hegel’s legs, their purloined plating saving their lives, Al-Gassur in pursuit but far enough back to avoid the volley.
Barousse did not share their armor, thus the two bolts striking his shoulder and the third hitting his thigh embedded in flesh. Ignoring the wounds, he knocked his remaining guard over as he burst into the house, causing the poor man to fall onto his lamp. The lamp shattered, engulfing him in liquid fire. The Grossbarts sprang over the flailing man as he burned alive, and Al-Gassur did the same moments before the pikemen reached the terrace. If the Grossbarts noticed their manservant had miraculously regained his missing appendage