1635_ Cannon Law - Eric Flint [103]
Still, it wasn't the evening to be fretting over the problems of being a boss. They were getting ready to go show the assembled minor nobility of Rome how three American gals could knock 'em dead, even if they did have to make do with down-time makeup these days. Thank God for Stoner, was all she could say. His dyes and pigments might not have been up to making lipstick to Revlon's standards, but compared with the poisons others used down-time, they were a godsend.
The clothes made up for it, though. Rita was quite vocal about dressing up as a fairy princess, and she wasn't far off the mark. Melissa might not be saying anything, but Sharon could tell she wasn't exactly protesting at the confections of, well, pretty much everything that the local seamstresses had turned out for them.
So was that when Captain Taggart knocked and Sharon shouted out "Come in! We're decent—"
—and Rita had shouted "Speak for yourself, girl!"—
He put his head round the door to see a scene that looked like aftermath of a twister in a cosmetics-and-lingerie warehouse. To his credit, other than his eyes widening briefly, he didn't seem fazed. "Mistress Nichols, you should see this, out the front."
Sharon's suite of rooms was at the back of the building. As they followed the Captain of Marine Horse toward the front of the building, she heard the commotion before they saw it. The ballroom-cum-exercise-hall had the best view of the street and it was there that he led them. Ruy and Tom and her dad were there, already ready to go out. In Dad's case, he'd probably been ready for a while and was ready to complain loudly and bitterly about female tardiness—not that that wouldn't stop him strutting once he had the results on his arm. The three men, along with one of the Marines, were peering out the window looking at whatever was making the racket in the street below.
Sharon went over and joined them. The twilit street outside was hardly crowded with the group who were doing all the shouting. They stood back a little from the entrance, no doubt because there was a constant two-Marine guard there with rifle, bayonet and saber. Other than that, they were gathered around the entrance, reached back maybe halfway across the street and a few yards either side. As mob protests went, pretty feeble stuff. At a rough guess, between the staff and the Marines, the crowd was outnumbered by the embassy they were picketing. Or, if Ruy was making the estimate, by him alone.
"They arrived all together a few minutes ago," Captain Taggart said.
"All together?" Sharon asked.
"Not even the pretence of spontaneous action," Ruy said, sounding amused.
"This one of the rent-a-crowds you've been telling us about?" Her father addressed his question to no one in particular.
Melissa sniffed. "I should go out and give them some pointers. In my day, we knew how to protest. I could start evening classes, I'd clean up."
Ruy chuckled. "Doña Melissa, it is certain that your skills in these matters would command a higher price than was spent on all of these poltroons together. I have made enquiries. This is work for those lacking the skill to shovel dung from the streets. I have spoken with some of the people who have been to such things, and wit was not much in evidence. I have not spoken to the teams of men Quevedo has organizing these little parties, but the practice seems to be that any warm body will do."
"Ha!" Melissa's laugh didn't have much humor in it. "Astroturf. Still, on the bright side, it'll be the first time the official estimate of the crowd will be more accurate than the protestors' one."
"Really?" Sharon's dad asked.
"Sure. We'd get a couple of hundred thousand marching through Washington. Next day, you'd read in the paper that 'official estimates' "—she pronounced the words the same way most people would damned lies—"would say that the demonstration consisted of