1635_ Cannon Law - Eric Flint [112]
"She'd do it, too," her dad said.
"I well believe it, Doctor," Ruy said, "for did she not resort to disembowelling me to get me into her bed?"
Sharon groaned, and looked to Rita for support. "They're ganging up on me," she pleaded, "help me!" There was no help from that quarter. Rita was smirking.
"I suppose," Melissa said to no one in particular as they drew up to the embassy, "that it's too late to issue any warnings about men and their juvenile senses of humor?"
"Entirely," Sharon said.
They sat up talking a while. Tom and Rita finally had time to fill everyone in on the details of their frankly hair-raising escape from the Tower. Ruy said that he should very much like to meet Harry Lefferts, a notion that made Melissa go a little pale.
For her part, Sharon made sure her report had gone with the night's radio dispatches before settling down with the others. Once Tom and Rita had gotten through a blow-by-blow of the dash out of London and the wine was going around, Sharon realized she was pretty much bushed. "I'd tell you all what you're missing at the Palazzo Barberini," she said, "but I don't reckon I can stay up another minute."
"Now you mention it," Tom said, "beauty sleep is calling to me, too. And a guy like me needs all he can get."
Just then, Corporal Ritson stuck his head around the door. "Mistress? There's trouble out."
"What?" said everyone at once.
"Brawl in the street outside. Lads've barred t' door."
Sharon had to think about that for a moment. Ritson's accent was pretty thick—he pronounced door as "do-er." "Will we see from the windows?" she asked.
"Best not, mistress," Ritson said. "They're hoisting stones at one another. I've sent a lad to wake t' cap'n, mistress, and come t'tell you and the señor, mistress." He looked worried, which probably meant pretty much the same from the case-hardened borderer as it did from Ruy.
"I predict you will want to go and see in any event, Sharon," Ruy said, not bothering to embroider it with any weary tone of resignation. "I shall accompany you, and I would esteem it a great service if Señor Simpson came also. Your presence, señor, will do much to deter the common sort of ruffian and avoid the need for steel to be drawn."
"Be glad to oblige," Tom said.
The embassy fronted straight onto the street, so there was no easy way to defend the building and still have the door open. The Marines on guard had come inside and barred the big double-leaf main door, and one of them was looking out of the spy-hatch at the street outside. There were four of them, all with their carbines at the ready, and Sharon could hear booted feet jogging into other rooms. The windows were shuttered, but to a determined man with a prybar they were unlikely to be much defense.
"Let me see," said Sharon, already hearing the sounds of a commotion outside. The Marine at the hatch stood aside and let her peer through the little iron grille. With a four-inch square to look through, she couldn't see much other than a confusion of ragged clothes and flying fists. There were hoarse shouts, the sounds of blows landing and yells of pain, fear and anger. And, lying in the street, mostly clutching at parts of themselves but in one case ominously still, people who had been hurt.
"The scunners hae been at each other like that f'r a wee while, mistress," the Marine who'd been at the hatch said. "Two mobs ae 'em come at once, and fell tae blows. We came within doors, mistress, rather than be involved wi'oot the rest o' the lads, mistress."
Sharon had the feeling that that was out of an unselfish desire to ensure the fun was shared. "Did you hear them say anything about why they're fighting?"
"Some ae' em're agin all foreign folk as they see it, mistress," he said, plainly doubtful that a Scotsman could be called a foreigner by anyone, least of all someone who was a foreigner himself, "and t'others are riled aboot yon Spaniard papist."