1635_ Cannon Law - Eric Flint [106]
"Good work, señor," Ruy commented.
"Yeah, good. What're you planning from here on in?" Sharon asked. "If you can tell me, that is."
"We'll keep spoiling this rent-a-crowd crap, where we can. Can't do much about the fake propaganda for the time being, although between the fifty or so people who nearly got killed last night, we've now got a cousin's wife's brother or something like that in every printing shop in town. We'll find out what's going down there, too. I, uh, got a lot of new friends last night."
"Sounds like it," Sharon said. "Come by in the morning and tell us the whole story. Right now I've got to go and be an ambassador, but this has to be worth hearing."
"Sure is," Frank said. "Gist of it is that they got someone to start a bar fight in my place, and had militia ready to 'suppress the riot' when it spilled in to the street. We got lucky, to be honest; their timing was a bit off. We saw it coming in time to get a lot of people inside and safe. Turns out they had some other guys on the street as a backstop. We'd have lost a lot more people if they'd been able to stop up all the little alleys and such."
"Why?" Rita asked.
"Disorder and riot, Doña Rita," Ruy said. "A pretext for political action against His Holiness. Señor Stone, ensure you have scouts to warn of militia movements. I would wager that Quevedo has suborned militia whom he positions to be ready. Many of their officers truly believe they are suppressing genuine insurrection, and harsh measures are required. They will not readily see the difference between your people and Quevedo's hirelings."
"I figured as much," Frank said. "I'm not going to do much beyond spoil this kind of crap. I saw how trigger-happy they were last night."
"Is there likely to be real rioting?" Dr. Nichols asked. "Way I heard it, it was just stuff like tonight. But from what you're saying, people are getting pretty pissed."
Frank rocked a hand. "Maybe. There's usually some, this time of year. But like you say, people are getting pissed. Now that we've got people finally listening to what we're saying about it being the Spanish, that's really got 'em going. What can I say? They don't cotton to foreigners much, when they look like they might invade. And, uh, no disrespect, Señor Sanchez, some of the older folks remember what you did in Venice and are saying something like that's going to happen here."
Ruy chuckled. "A shame, really, that the elder Osuna was executed. It would be such a pleasure for him to know that that scheme was still biting Spain in the ass fifteen years later. I shall tell Alfonso when I see him; he will be ecstatic. At the time, he truly believed it was a good plan."
Rita spoke up. "Sharon, can you explain all this on the way? We really should be going."
"Right," Sharon said. "Frank, can you be here at, say, ten tomorrow? We need to talk. I need to make a report back to Magdeburg about tonight, if nothing else, and your part of the story needs to go in it."
"Sure thing, Ms. Nichols," Frank said. "Meantime, I've got a bar to run."
The evening at the Palazzo Colonna was quite refreshingly dull.
Chapter 24
Rome
Frank returned from the embassy to find his place full of people, most of whom he'd never seen before. Pretty much all the regulars were in, though. And everyone wanted to know if it was true that the Spanish were about to invade. The best Frank could manage was "not right now." He could tell a lot of folks weren't believing him, but nobody seemed to be calling for barricades and the like yet. In fact, everyone seemed to have settled in for a goodly long evening of drinking, dancing