1635_ Cannon Law - Eric Flint [25]
"Well, I did ask you, messer," Dino said, grinning to show he was just kidding.
"Uh, yeah, right," Frank said, remembering. "I guess we should take a look around, see what's where and all, before we start piling things up. Maestro Bazzi sent us a floorplan, but I never looked too closely. Tell you what, go tell Piero to park the carriage in this yard thing here, while I try and get a handle on how this place is laid out. I figure he's going to want to stay over night before he heads back to Padua with the carriage."
"Right," said Dino, putting the box he was carrying down where he stood. "He's going to ask when we eat—what'll I tell him?"
That was true enough, Frank realized. The coachmen who came with the carriages they'd hired in Padua—there were some real advantages to being the son of one of Europe's leading industrialists, and a generous allowance to spend was one of them and Frank was by god not going to try doing that journey in cheap carts again—seemed to have only two topics of conversation, which were how slow they were going, and how long it seemed to be between meals. Still, his own stomach was starting to rumble a bit.
"I figure if you ask Piero to find us a cookshop or something where we can get dinner, it'll give him something to do while we unload the carriage."
"Sure," said Dino, and went outside.
The taverna was basically one big room with a big kitchen walled off at the back. The previous proprietor's living quarters were two floors above, if Frank remembered the plans right, with guest rooms on the floor in between. Servants got the attics and garrets. It had, in its day, been quite a decent place, judging by the trash. Sure, the furniture was only staying together because the woodworm was being careful not to breathe too hard, but it looked like it had been good stuff, once.
A quick look around confirmed that pretty much the whole building was in the same sort of condition. Four floors and a cellar, the bottom three the derelict taverna, the top two what could just about be called apartments.
The whole building was L-shaped, forming two sides of the coach yard with the stables at the back and the next-door building on the third side. The front of the courtyard was walled off with a high gate in the middle of it. A carriage would go through the gate, just, if everyone on top ducked. And what the contents consisted of mostly was pigeon-crap, broken furniture and trash. Cleaning up was going to be . . . interesting.
Still, there was a first job. From outside, he could hear the sound of the second carriage pulling up. And that meant—
He ran downstairs and outside, and there she was. There were some things that tradition just plain got right, and Frank had been looking forward to this.
He handed Giovanna down from the carriage seat next to Niccolo, the other driver—the inside of the carriage was stuffed full of baggage, and the trip to Rome had been barely faster than the last fiasco—and kissed her hungrily. "Okay," he said, "I don't know if they do this in Venice, but—"
Giovanna squealed when he reached down and caught her up in his arms. As he got her to the taverna door Dino was just coming out and stopped to hold the door open. "Gotta carry you across the threshold," Frank said, trying hard not to show that carrying Giovanna was causing assorted muscles to protest.
Giovanna just giggled, and Frank stepped across the threshold with her in his arms. Only when they were inside did he put her down and kiss her again. Damn, Frank thought, that felt good, as he broke off to a chorus of cheers and whistles from the guys, who had all got down from the roof of the carriage to watch.
Meanwhile, Giovanna was looking around her at their new home, and her reaction was the same as her cousin's. "Merda," she breathed. "Don't unpack yet! Get the carriages into that yard, we'll get some space cleared."
Frank turned around to where Dino, Fabrizzio and Benito stood around the door, and shouted, "Guys, you heard Giovanna! Get