1635_ Cannon Law - Eric Flint [34]
"How are they doing, out of curiosity?"
"Well, as it happens. I shall have the reports collated for Friday morning to let you have a fuller picture. Now," Nasi said, rising, "I have intruded enough on what I am sure is a busy day. You have all the facts at our disposal on the situation in Rome ahead of your meeting with Wilhelm tomorrow, and I feel sure he will ask."
Stearns frowned. "You haven't . . . ?"
"Watergate? No. I have simply made a point of studying the man's political style, much as I have yours, and I feel there are some matters in which he is quite predictable."
Stearns' frown evaporated. "Reading up on your next boss, Francisco?"
Nasi wagged a finger. "Now, now, Mike. That is not guaranteed, and mine is a political appointment. I may well be unemployed soon after you are."
Stearns snorted. "Sure. He's got a lot of respect for your talents, as it happens, and is comfortable enough with the idea of court Jews that he'll almost certainly leave you where you are."
Nasi clapped a hand to his breast. "Such a relief. I fret at the thought of losing my munificent salary."
In truth, Nasi did not do his job for the money. He'd been a rich man when he came to head the USE secret service and would leave office just as rich. He kept enough of the salary he was paid to cover his expenses and used the rest as a discretionary fund for the more delicate operations whose appearance in a departmental budget report under their own names would be embarrassing at least and disastrous at worst. No one could accuse him of hiding expenditures, though. Think of it though he might as the government's money, he was legally and morally spending his own cash on government business. Sometimes he wondered how his successor would manage without that little extra to draw on. Between that dodge and a few others such as the Congden library, still going strong after nearly a year, he managed to spend his departmental budget several times over and still have a reserve arising when he made sure that he spent the official allotment to the cent.
Stearns knew it as well. He laughed out loud. "Be off, go do something nefarious and I'll see you on Friday morning. I have a small pack of aggrieved noblemen to either appease or stomp on, I forget which."
Nasi took his leave and returned to, as it happened, arrange the subornment of a Saxon quartermaster. Quite nefarious enough to fulfill the letter and spirit of his orders, he felt, and it gave him plenty of appetite for supper.
Chapter 8
Rome
Frank was beginning to think that whatever he managed to do as a revolutionary, he always had a career ahead of him in the restaurant trade. Within a week—a week of chaos and backbreaking work—they had had the Freedom Arches end of the operation open for business. Benito was a natural with flyers, a form of advertising that hadn't apparently been a major feature of Roman commercial life until now, and they'd started getting good crowds within a couple of days.
They didn't call it the Freedom Arches, though. It was just "Frank's Place" for the time being. Frank had decided right off, even before they got to Rome, that they'd do the political stuff quietly and without fuss. Concentrate on substance, not form, to put it another way. He thought waving red banners and engaging in firebrand street oratory in the same city as—in fact, no more than a couple of hundred yards from—World Inquisition HQ was just plain stupid. Not to mention being a good way to get tossed into a cell. He'd had all of three nights in prison in his entire life and didn't want any more of that than he could possibly avoid, thank you very much.
Besides, it seemed to fit the Roman style. Frank had the impression even before moving to Rome—which had since been pretty well confirmed—that the Church and city authorities, at least with the current pope in power, were inclined to look the other way as long as you didn't insist on rubbing their noses in