1635_ Cannon Law - Eric Flint [42]
The rest had fled, for most of the troopers had been backed up behind their fellows at the tail end of the charge. The few who had gotten around the rioters had penned them in for only a few moments, and when one was pulled down the pressure had been relieved. Like lancing a boil. The troopers left behind, finally under the command of sergeants with some sense, had begun gathering up their wounded and dead. One of those sergeants had offered a sword-salute, but had said nothing. Now, he came over.
"Dottoressa," he said. "I thank you for your assistance. I fear the magistrate will wish to hear your witness of today's work." His face was grim. Sharon wondered if he had known, before the order was given, that he had been ordered to commit an atrocity?
"I can be contacted at the embassy of the United States of Europe," she said. "I shall be back there this afternoon, after I complete the business which this interrupted."
The sergeant nodded. "My thanks," he said. "For what it is worth, Dottoressa, if I had known before the order was given—" he spread his hands.
He had known, Sharon realized, but too late. Somehow she couldn't bring herself to feel sympathy for him. "I hope for your sake," she said, after a long pause, "that the death of your officer is enough to absorb all the blame."
He nodded, gloomily, and thanked her again before turning away to organize his troop's return to barracks.
"It will not suffice," said Ruy. "Like every militia, they are officered by gentry, and such as they do not allow their own to be blamed."
Sharon snorted her agreement. "Not my problem." Then, after a moment's thought. "What is my problem is what the hell started this lot off, Ruy."
Ruy smiled. "Your perceptiveness is yet another of your fine qualities. It is clear even to a simple Catalan soldier such as myself, the very byword of rusticity."
"Knock it off, Ruy," she said. "A rented crowd is one thing we need to look into. Everything in this town is political in some way or other. The fact that it turned into a massacre only adds to the mayhem. We've been here less than a month, and things are—might be, at any rate—turning ugly. I want to know what it means for the USE."
"If it means anything at all," Ruy chided. "You are not a Castilian, to be seeing plots in every shadow, Sharon."
"No, I'm not. But we've got powerful friends in this town, the USE has at any rate, and if things are changing around here it could affect us." She chuckled. "I'm stating the obvious, aren't I?"
"Most insightfully, my love."
"We'll see what the spooks have turned up when we get back. If anything. It all seems to be Cardinal Whatshisface says this, and Monsignor Whoozit is maneuvering for the other."
Ruy cocked his head on one side. "In truth, these things are the very life of politics in Rome," he said.
"I think I may have heard a trace of sarcasm there, Ruy," Sharon said, looking down ruefully at her ruined dress. "And I'm wearing the reason I think they're missing something."
Ruy nodded. "Although I could wish that you had not rushed on to this scene so quickly, it speaks in a voice like thunder of the finest qualities my intended possesses," he said. "But, indeed, this is an unusual political maneuver for Rome. Did we not have a report that Borja is just outside the city, receiving a stream of distinguished guests?"
"We did. You think there's a connection?" It was Sharon's turn to raise her eyebrows.
Ruy shrugged, an expression into which he could put more meaning than most people Sharon knew could manage in an hour-long PowerPoint presentation. This time he was giving off I am hypothesizing wildly with overtones