1635_ Cannon Law - Eric Flint [174]
"So basically the situation is that Borja got a wild hair up his ass and Olivares is going to be as surprised as we are?"
Nasi chuckled. Some rulers would not have been so understanding. A failure on this scale—and Nasi planned to light a few metaphorical fires under several figurative backsides come the morning, on general principles—would have seen him personally lucky to be allowed to resign alive. "Most succinctly put. More surprising still is the response of our embassy in Rome. Without for one moment wishing to ensure the embarrassment is spread as widely as possible, I think State will be responsible for the brick that will be found, come the morning, in the royal privy of Gustavus Adolphus. But we do have some radio time left. Do you wish me to instruct Sharon to call it off?"
Mike closed his eyes, and appeared to be thinking very hard and very fast. "No, she's done the right thing. She's given me a fait accompli that I've pretty much got to play along with. Remember, my sister signed off on that deal as well. Be kind of hard to go back on it now, and I'd prefer us to have a good name for keeping our bargains. We're helping the only friends we're likely to have in Italy for a long time to come, if Borja pulls this off, and we're trying to toss a wrench into the works for the biggest enemy we've got. I can't see that anyone's going to blame us, or even be surprised, much."
"So we go with it?"
"We go with it," Mike said. "Get a message back to Sharon, tell her that all her actions to date are ratified, to ask for a list of persons desiring asylum as soon as she can plausibly claim to have had a message back to us and, uh, wish her and the team she sent in to Rome luck."
"Luck?"
"Yep." Mike grinned, broadly. "How many divisions has the pope? Right now, quite a few, even if they're in the wrong place to do him any good. Next week, if he gets out of Castel Sant'Angelo, none. I think the results might be, ah, interesting. And very embarrassing for Spain."
Chapter 39
Rome
Frank clutched his left hand tight in against himself, squatting down and pressing it between his thigh and belly. It wouldn't be so bad if it would just settle down and hurt. But just when he thought he'd gotten used to it, it'd start throbbing again. And he'd get to thinking about the fact that he had only three fingers on his left hand now.
That was better than poor Benito, who had a splinter of one of the tables he'd waited take one of his ears off and rip his cheek down to the bone. Dino had taken a nasty crack to the head diving for cover when they sent the last volley of musket fire into the building. Both of them were sitting in back, watching the cellar stairs and feeling sorry for themselves. Everyone else had various cuts and bruises and there was a lot of coughing going on.
Sure, no one had been killed yet, on either side, as far as Frank could tell. And the two near-things they'd had with fires starting about the place had been put out before they did more than make the air in the place foul and vile to breathe. It had all just been one little accident after another. They had plenty of furniture to hide behind, and that, behind sold brick walls, made pretty effective protection against musket balls. Some of the ricochets were a little scary, but by the time they'd made a couple of bounces they were pretty much spent. One of Piero's friends had gotten hit in the ass, which had made him yelp, but the bullet hadn't even gone through his coattails. There was a bit of a scorch mark and he'd have a bruise, but everyone