1635 The Cannon Law: Chapter Seventeen

    "Well, this is a grand house," Giovanna remarked.

    "All of 'em are, around here," Frank said. And it was true. The USE Embassy was in a very nice neighbourhood indeed, on the outskirts of the huge Borghese estate. That said, there did seem to be a lot of people just ... hanging around. That wouldn't have been much out of the ordinary down toward the Borgo on the other side of the river. Frank was pretty much used to the sight of the street-life being seasoned with a fair few of what you could only call "colourful characters"—assuming, that is, you didn't want to call them bums and petty criminals. Frank had the feeling that seeing more than one around here would be a little odd, and come right to it, a few streets away there hadn't been quite so many specimens of the local wildlife mixed in among the well-to-do. It was ... odd.

    That said, there were guards at the door of the embassy, a couple of big Marine cavalrymen looking relaxed but alert, and generally very smart and military.

    "'Ow do, Mister Stone," one of them said as he and Giovanna mounted the steps.

    Frank puzzled a moment to place the face under the helmet. "Private Ritson?" he guessed after a moment. He'd last seen the guy a year ago at the embassy in Venice. Looked like he'd been assigned here now. Ritson was one of the Englishmen in the nominally Scots cavalry regiment that had become the Grantville Marine Cavalry, a reminder that the regiment were borderers and that the border they came from had two sides.

    "Aye, but it's Corporal Ritson now, thank you," Ritson said, grinning and pointing at the stripe on his arm.

    "Oh, right, I didn't notice," Frank said, feeling a bit foolish. "Congratulations, man."

    "Cheers," Ritson said. "Mistress Nichols is expecting you and the lady, go right on in."

    "Thanks, man," said Frank, nodding to the other marine—whom he didn't recognise at all—on the way in.

    Inside, it was plain that whatever the USE's other budget problems, they weren't stinting on the rent. The place was, if anything, even gaudier than the palazzo they'd rented in Venice. In this case, Roman standards being a bit different from Venetian ones—they had more space, for one thing—the place was only accounted a large house, not a palace. Inside, though, there was marble and carven cherubs and gilt and a general air of reeeal freakin' expensive about the place. Frank found himself looking for somewhere to wipe his feet.

    Giovanna didn't seem fazed by it one bit. She was halfway to the reception desk before Frank was done gawking. A few quick words with the clerk there—Frank noticed that the seventeenth century had had its say and there wasn't a female receptionist, but a guy who'd been stuffed in to smart clothes and given a quill and ledger to sign folks in and out—and she was back. "The Dottora will be told we are here, someone will tell us when it is time to go in." Sure enough, Frank could see a messenger trotting off, some kid who looked maybe fourteen. The seventeenth century was getting its way on that score as well, whatever the folks back in Grantville might have had to say about child labour.

    "Hey, guys!" Sharon's voice called from the turn of the magnificent marble staircase at the other end of the entrance hall. Frank sneaked a look and saw the receptionist wearing a slightly pained expression at the outrageous finger Sharon was flipping at the right way of doing things as he saw it. And then Sharon came in to view, trailed by the slightly sheepish-looking messenger.

    "Sharon, hi, man. Are we early?" Frank wasn't entirely sure. His watch had finally run out of battery the year before, and the time-keeping you got from Rome's church bells was only good to within ten minutes or so and varied from street to street depending on which church you could hear best.

    Sharon waved it aside. "Close enough guys, come on up. I've got an examination room up here at the back where the light's good."

    The way to the examination room took them past a door from behind which could be heard the sounds of a full-on sword fight. Sharon must have seen the looks on Frank and Giovanna's faces, because she laughed and said "Ruy's putting the marines through their morning sword-drill. Some days you can see the testosterone seeping under the door."

    "Figures," Frank said, and chuckled. "Jocks, eh?"

    "Thing is," Sharon said, "Ruy would agree with you. It's just that his notion of how a jock ought to act would, ah, probably surprise some of the guys on your high school football team."

    "Yeah?" Frank asked, as Sharon opened the door to a room that was, if anything, grander than the entrance hall had been. Big, and open, and with huge mullioned windows that looked out over a big, big garden that was all straight lines and angles, the kind Frank had only ever seen in movies. "Nice place you got here, by the way," he added.

    "Is, ain't it?" Sharon said, with a wry grin. "We pretty much have to spend all this money just to get taken seriously. Even as a doctor." She snorted her contempt for the idea. "Ain't like there weren't plenty of people in the twentieth century who had the same fool idea, mind."

    Frank decided to take her word for it. "So, uh, I should go amuse myself while you and Giovanna, uh -" Actually, Frank wasn't at all sure what the hell was going to happen. And, really, didn't want to. Giovanna and Sharon were exchanging a look that simply said 'Men!'. "I'll, uh, go look in Ruy and the guys, doing, uh, guy stuff, okay?" he said, and beat it before they could mock him any more.

    When he opened the door to the training room—from the looks it was a ballroom the rest of the time—it looked like the whole room had been turned in to a gigantic human-powered mincing machine. There were what looked like twenty guys in Marine uniforms with leather vests over them, paired off around the room and, as far as Frank could tell, fighting. And in the middle, his back to Frank and glaring at one pair who had apparently stopped for a breather, was Ruy Sanchez.

    “Senor Faul!” He was bellowing, “The rapier for honour, the back-sword for duty, your countrymen say! Pray you remember it! If Senor Crombie should open himself to a kick in the crotch as he has just done, you will administer him one, with great force! Duty is to kill the enemy, not treat with him as a gentleman! Now, again! And this time, Crombie, close your stance because if Faul doesn’t smash your balls for you I, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, will!”

    The two marines came to guard positions—Frank thought that was the right word, although what he knew about fencing pretty much stopped at knowing the pointy end went toward your opponent. There was a blur of steel, and clearly Crombie didn’t make the same mistake again because the exchange ended with Faul yelping, saying something that was almost certainly filthy in Gaelic, and clutching his forearm.

    “Better,” Sanchez shouted and, without turning around, “Senor Stone! So good to see you! Will you join us?”

    Frank looked around—like there’s another Senor Stone in here, dummy, he thought. “I, uh, don’t have a sword,” he said, as Sanchez turned round.

    “A lack we can remedy,” Sanchez said, “you will see a box of practice sabres to your right, and a jack which will fit you there also.”

    Frank began to think he should have hung around for the gynecological exam.

    Forty-five minutes later he had a fine set of bruises, was gasping for breath, sweating like a boar hog and knew how to take guard, stand, advance, retreat, sidestep, parry to quarte and sixte and and could perform two simple cuts and a lunge. All of them badly, but Sanchez grudgingly allowed that he might survive as much as thirty seconds of a real fight. On a good day. Against an opponent who was profoundly drunk.

    After dismissing the Marines, all of whom seemed indecently fresh after their own training session, Sanchez came over to where Frank was trying to summon the energy to get out of his gear, or for that matter to work out which bit of him hurt the most. His thighs were burning, both arms ached, his stomach muscles were just on the good side of a cramp and his entire right side and arm seemed to be just one big bruise.

    “Thanks, Senor Sanchez,” Frank gasped, pulling at the buckles of the one-armed, high-necked leather vest that had saved him from being turned into low-grade hamburger meat, “Maybe I should get me a sword.”

    “Perhaps, Senor Stone,” Sanchez said, “But do you have a gun?”

    “Yeah, a revolver, six-shooter. One of the ones they’re making in the USE these days. I really should practice with it more, but I just don’t get the time.”

    “Find the time, Senor -”

    “Please, call me Frank -”

    “Thank you, and, outside the training room, you may also address me with familiarity as a friend of my intended. As I was saying, find the time to practice. You performed well for a first lesson, for you are a sportsman, yes?”

    “Soccer. Lot of running in the game, for ninety minutes.”

    “Indeed. It serves you well, and I worked you harder than I would have otherwise. Harder than I did the marines, Frank.”

    “Yeah? You kind of caught me by surprise asking me to join in, actually,” Frank was starting to get his breath back, but a couple of gallons of ice-cold water were starting to seem like a really good idea about now. “Why’d you do that?”

    “Dona Sharon asked me to. Not the instruction specifically, but among the matters she has tasked me with is the safety of the Committee. The opportunity to instill some rudimentary skills presented itself, and I took it as furthering the desires of the woman I love.”

    Frank nodded. “Makes sense,” he said. “By the way, can you teach me to do the thing with the eyes in the back of your head?”

    “When you came in to the room?” Sanchez was chuckling. “Frank, the first lesson of the destreza, the one that is never taught but must be learned most well, is to pay attention and observe. And the uniform of the Marines, and I insist they train as they would fight, includes a cuirass. A very bright, shiny, polished cuirass.”

    Frank grinned back. “And there I was thinking your were pulling some kind of Obi-Wan Kenobi schtick on me.”

    “Who is Obi-Wan Kenobi?” Sanchez asked, frowning, “A real person of the future or a fictional character?”

    Frank grinned. “Fictional, as it happens. A jedi knight, a warrior and I guess you’d call him a wizard. If you ever go back to Grantville, ask Sharon to see that you get to see Star Wars, I reckon you’d like it.”

    “Ah, the television I have heard so much about? I shall make careful note of your recommendation, Frank. But likewise make note of mine. Practice with your gun, please. Be ready to use it, as well. You have more skill with the sword now than the common run of ruffian, but that will avail you nothing against a man who has been fighting since childhood, however unschooled he may be.”

    Frank felt a slight chill, and not a welcome one, however sweaty he might be. He’d seen fencing on the TV one time, and it looked like quite a silly sport—two guys in metal masks playing tag with car aerials. Suddenly he didn’t see the training session he’d just been shanghaied into as having anything to do with that game. It was about kill or be freakin’ killed. And he still got nightmares about the sight of Marius Pontigrazzi’s head bursting from where Gerry had shot him in the face. An episode that had calmed Gerry himself right the fuck down from his hillbilly-hardass pose, and sent him clear back to Grantville, with side trips to Rudolstadt and Jena, to rethink his life in major ways. “Right,” he said, when he’d fought down the shudder. “More range time. I can use the cellar, put some targets up in there.”

    “You do that. Practice at short ranges, point and shoot. Those weapons are excellent devices, Frank, as good as having six pistols in one hand.” Sanchez’ usual good-natured grin was nowhere in evidence now. Frank felt the conversation was being altogether too serious for his taste. Sanchez wasn’t letting up, though. “Practice with your left hand as well. Practice reloading as swiftly as you may.”

    “You really think there will be trouble?” Frank asked.

    “There will always be trouble, Frank,” Sanchez said, “And there is seldom any easy way in which to predict where and when it will come to you. For now, I suspect there are those who will use your presence and activities for their own ends, and while they care little enough to order your death, I feel sure that they would issue no tears were it to happen. And, Frank, I, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, say that the way of honor is to prepare to flee, and cover your retreat with gunfire. Honor lies in doing one’s duty, not throwing your life away.”

    Frank felt certain that Sanchez was hinting at something, but he couldn’t tell what the hell it was. “Yes, Ruy,” Frank said. “Understood. I’ve had my taste of stand-up fighting and I guess I’m not the kind of guy that enjoys it. If it can be avoided, I’m out of there. I, uh, guess I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

    “Exactly my point, and as you—Ah!” Ruy straightened in order to deliver a sweeping bow. “Senora Stone, it is a pleasure and an honour to see you again. I regret, most sincerely, that I have caused your husband some shortness of breath, but it is certain to pass before you require him for anything.”

    Frank grinned ruefully and hauled himself to his feet. “Senor Sanchez let me try out with the sabre. He recommends I practice my shooting.”

    “Oh, now, with much study, you would become a fine and competent swordsman, Senor Stone,” Sanchez said, and then, to Sharon, “I felt it would be worthwhile to equip the young caballero with the rudiments of self-defence. If worst comes to worst, he should be able to hold off ordinary ruffians. With your permission, Dona Ambassadora, if he will again accompany his most beautiful wife on her next visit, I will endeavour to impart some more training?”

    “By all means, Ruy, Giovanna and I went and had a coffee and a chat after we were done precisely to let you get on with that,” Sharon said. “Frank, Giovanna’s in fine form, nothing to worry about. I’ve suggested she start taking it easy as she gets toward her third trimester, just light work from then on. She’s a healthy girl and a hard worker, and she complained about it, but those are doctors’ orders. No sense in unnecessary risks, I say. See she doesn’t take ‘em.”

    Frank sketched a salute. “Ma’am,” he said, “Exactly what I was saying. Between me and her brothers, we should be able to keep her from doing anything too strenuous. Uh, what’s a trimester?”

    Once that had been straightened out, and Frank had gotten the long cool drink he was gasping for, Sharon made another suggestion. “Frank, would you like Ruy to come over and check out your place to advise on things like defences and routes out in a hurry?”

    “Well, sure, Ms. Nichols,” Frank said, frowning, “Senor Sanchez is welcome any time. But, uh, between you and Senor Sanchez that’s the second warning of trouble I’ve had today. You think there’s more to it than leaflets and rentacrowds?”

    “Well, we are and we aren’t,” Sharon said, her face a perfect deadpan. “On the one hand, we can’t see where everything we’re seeing is leading except for trouble for the Vatican. On the other hand, there’s trouble in the streets as well, and Ruy’s seen at least one guy he knows is a real nasty customer, and apparently he’s capable of anything”

    Ruy barked a laugh. “Say rather, he will attempt anything, and the results are usually disastrous for many. Capable, outside of doggerel and philosophical musings, he is not. But in bungling whatever business he is about, he is sure to cause trouble. I have had one of my own operations ruined by Francisco Quevedo y Villega, and been one step ahead of an angry mob as a result.”

    “How will I know this guy if I see him?” Frank asked, visions of some sinister Spanish agent haunting his club flitting through his mind.

    “Likely, you will not,” Sanchez said. “It was purely good fortune that I spotted him when and where I did, and it beggars belief that he is not working for Cardinal Borja, if the evidence of the past few weeks’ deeds is of any worth. It is precisely the manner of foolishness that he would attempt.”

    “So, Frank,” Sharon said, “We’re taking precautions just in case. And you have responsibilities, not just to the committee.”

    “Dottora!” Giovanna said, her voice sharp, “Do not suggest that I will shirk any danger!”

    Frank stifled a groan. Sharon had unwittingly pressed the Revolution Button in Giovanna’s brain. “Giovanna,” he said, “look at it this way. We don’t have enough to face these guys in a straight fight. If we have to, we simply melt away, and come back when their attention moves on. We don’t play the game by their rules, Giovanna, because if we do, we lose. We stay until it gets hot, and then we get our heads down until the trouble passes.”

    “Frank -” Giovanna began, her eyes starting to flash. She wouldn’t even think about hesitating to pick a fight right in front of Ruy and Ms. Nichols.

    Nothing for it, Frank thought, and drew himself up. “Enough!” he said, looking her straight in the eye. “I decide the tactics, and when we cannot win, we bug out. No-one’s going to be a martyr. No-one.”

    Giovanna plainly didn’t like it, but she had very strong reflexes where some things were concerned. She’d been raised to be a dutiful daughter and some day a dutiful wife. Frank hated using that against her, but on some issues—like her probable willingness to stand on a barricade and defy a regiment of cavalry with nothing but cobblestones and raw courage so as to be a Martyr Of The Revolution—he figured the pay-off was worth acting like some domineering asshole. Raised as a commune hippy he might have been, but if it came to a choice between dumping his dad’s principles in the crapper or letting Giovanna get shot, he didn’t really have to think too hard.

    Giovanna subsided from the rant she had been building up to, and Frank could tell, from the way her lips thinned and she glared at him, that he hadn’t heard the last of this. He’d deal with it later. Although, from the looks, he’d gone up in Sanchez’ opinion.

    “Senora Stone,” Sanchez said, “your husband’s thinking is in accord with that of a professional soldier. I, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, can find no fault in his reasoning. Duty is not always both honourable and pleasant, and is frequently neither.”

    That didn’t go over too well with Giovanna either, Frank noticed, but decided that pressing it now wasn’t such a good idea. “We should get back,” he said to Giovanna. “We need to make sure the guys are ready for the lunchtime rush.”

    They said their good-byes to Sharon, and Sanchez agreed to come over and make a start on the defences of the committee and have lunch with them. On the way out, as they turned along the street to head for the bridge that would take them to their own side of the river, Sanchez leaned over, and in conversational tones, said, “Our movements are being reported. One of the people who have been watching the embassy building for the last few days just ran away, doubtless to deliver tidings of your departure.”

    “You saw?” Frank said, fighting the urge to turn around. He didn’t know much about this sort of thing, but he figured letting on that they knew was a wrong move.

    “A small boy, who was standing with a group of ruffians. Who, I might add, did not accord well with the character of this quarter of Rome.”

    “Did you see where he went?” Giovanna asked.

    “The opposite way from our present direction,” Sanchez said, pausing a moment to tip his hat to a lady passing them, “running fast. A risk of using street-urchins in this kind of business, they do not know how to be inconspicuous.”

    “What do we do?” Frank asked, trying hard to give an air of just chatting with an old friend as we stroll along.

    “Nothing, Senor Stone,” Sanchez said. “Let them believe we do not know we are being watched.”

    The rest of the walk back passed without incident.