The Assault

La Sconfitta della cavalleria francese.
La Battaglia di Pavia¹
Bernard van Orley (PD)

Aloysius couldn't help but notice that his hands were sweating, a lot. Where he gripped his halberd was wet, not so wet as to affect his grip, but wet enough that he noticed it. It reminded him of drill, hours in the hot sun and his weapon would look soaked with moisture. But the day was cool, he and his fellow Swiss Guardsmen were lined up in the Piazza San Pietro, waiting.

Everyone knew that the assault would come soon, they could hear the first cannons booming as the Imperial Army approached. While the forces defending the city had a numerous artillery, there weren't many artillerists in the garrison.

A cannon fired nearby, from the Leonine Wall to their right. Aloysius jumped at the sound.

A plan of Rome in the Middle Ages.
The Leonine City is visible in the upper left section.
Source

Andreas reached over and placed his hand on Aloysius' right shoulder, "Easy lad, you'll get used to the sound after a while."

Aloysius looked at his comrade, "If I live long enough."

"Aye, there is that."

Pablo Alvarez noticed the Duke of Bourbon riding up to the lines. Surely the man wasn't thinking of assaulting the walls on horseback. When the Duke dismounted, Pablo turned to his friend Francisco Hernandez.

"The man's got cojones, I'll give him that."

Francisco shrugged, "Cojones and a white cloak won't get this tercio over those damned walls. Better hope those herejes malditos² take that section of wall and open that gate to us. Perhaps within the city we can maneuver."

Pablo shook his head, as if a tight formation of pikemen and arquebusiers could maneuver in the confines of a city. He hoped that when the Landsknechts broke in to the city, they would be released to loot and pillage. He was hungry, as were his comrades. Being Imperial troops they knew that they would be paid at some point, their mercenary colleagues couldn't be that sure.

The Germans were hot to sack the city, they fought for pay, not politics.

Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, handed the reins to his servant, then flung his cloak open to the troops arrayed before him. A rough cheer went up as the men recognized their popular leader.

Looking to the nearest officer, Charles shouted out, "What say you, Captain? Let us be over these cursed walls and open the gates!"

Seeing a scaling party carrying a ladder behind the captain, the Duke strode over to them and shouted again. "Let me help you lads with your burden!"

The men cheered again and started to move towards the wall. The captain bellowed in the Duke's ear, "Monsieur le duc, let my men do this, you are too valuable ..."

Charles turned to the man and said something, his words were drowned out as one of the cannons in the wall belched death towards the men moving up to the assault. But he did release his grip on the ladder so that he could draw his sword.

"Hey, Benvenuto, who's the fancy pants bastard prancing around down there?"

Benvenuto Cellini, goldsmith by trade, defender of the Faith on this day, looked where Luigi Fabrizi was pointing. The man stood out like a sore thumb waving his sword in the air, a white cloak over his armor.

"My oath, I would wager that that is the Duke of Bourbon himself!"

Cellini aimed his primitive weapon in the direction of the Duke, and pulled his trigger. The powder in the pan flashed, igniting the charge in the breech of his weapon. As the range was short and he was an expert with the arquebus, he had some hope of hitting his target. Other than being blinded by smoke, he knew the weapon had fired properly by the kick to his shoulder.

As he reloaded and the smoke cleared, he no longer saw the man in the white cloak. Where he thought the man had been, was a swirling crowd of Landsknechts.

The Duke had gone down hard, collapsing without a word, his helmet snatched off as if by the very Hand of God. The captain only needed one look to see that the Duke was gone, as was much of his face.³

Without thinking he bellowed, "The Duke has fallen! We must avenge him!"

The nearby soldiers surged forward, ignoring the slackening fire from the walls ahead. The Duke had been a very popular commander, his successor Philibert of Chalon wasn't anywhere near as well-regarded by the men. His shouts to try and gain control of the assault fell on deaf ears.

Andreas saw them first, members of the militia fleeing from their positions on the wall and disappearing into the nearby streets of the city. He turned to Aloysius.

"Brace yourself lad, it's our turn."

Aloysius didn't understand at first, then he saw them, Landsknechts.

One of the mercenaries dragged a man, presumably a man captured on the wall, into the street. He shouted something then kicked the man. One of his comrades brought his sword down on the unfortunate, severing the man's head.

"Steady lads!" Captain Röist called out. Immediately the enemy turned in their direction.

One of the men laughed and pointed to his right, where the nearest gate lay. Some of the Landsknechts went in that direction, the others drew up some distance from the Swiss, waiting.

"What are they waiting for?" Aloysius managed to gasp out.

"The rest of their unit, there are only a score of them now, soon a thousand will come through that gate."

Aloysius nodded, he said a quick prayer. He didn't want to die, but it was beginning to look like he had no say in the matter.

None at all.

¹The Defeat of the French Cavalry. The Battle of Pavia - Detail of van Orley's tapestry of the battle fought in 1525.

² Cursed heretics. Many of the German-speaking Landsknechts were indeed Protestants, or "heretics" as the Catholic Spaniards considered them to be.

³ I have no idea if Charles III was hit in the face, call it dramatic license. Also the idea that Benvenuto Cellini was the man responsible for the Duke's death has come down to us almost as legend.