If there were anything that might be called a massacre, they would have word of it to every corner of the kingdom faster than lightning. And Don Vincente truly, truly did not want to spend the next few years of his career acting as a glorified constable if the trouble flared up. If nothing else, the opportunities for loot would be terrible. "Go and bring the men up, Sergeant. We should get this over with."
Ezquerra nodded and ambled off to carry out the order. Doubtless he would break in to a jog the moment he was certain his captain's back was turned.
Don Vincente had left the company a little way back down the street and come ahead alone to assess the situation. There were perhaps four or five hundred people, mostly men of the rougher sort, gathered in the piazza and shouting slogans. There were a few women, possibly whores looking for business, but Don Vincente did not know what Naples' required dress for such women was. Don Vincente's command of Italian—a necessity for any professional soldier—did not include much in the way of the local dialect of the language beyond what he needed to order servants about and other small matters. However, the tone was clear enough. These people were unhappy about something, and were demanding to know what the officials and notables in the huge and gaudy confection of a building in front of them were going to do about it.
"Disgusting," came a prissy and slightly sibilant voice, and Don Vincente's heart sank.
"Indeed, Father Gonzalez," he said, as smoothly as he could manage, mentally adding the words "you pious prick" as he did to everything he said to the man. After trying to police the morals of the soldiers, Gonzalez had returned to his campaign to find evidence of secret Jewry among the soldiers. Thus far, he had managed to completely miss the two actual Jewish veterans in the company. Their comrades had covered for them completely, and in any event the pair of them were sufficiently unobservant of their religion that a hypothetical Jewish Inquisition would probably suspect them of being secret Christians. He'd also ignored the openly Jewish surgeon who accompanied the tercio. He had, instead, given Don Vincente himself a hard time over sleeping late the Saturday after their two weeks of enforced training had ended.
Apparently, not working on a Saturday was evidence of a secret conversion to Judaism, Don Vincente's certificate of limpieza notwithstanding, and not simply the consequence of having indulged a little too heavily with his fellow officers at a small party the night before. Fortunately, the other two inquisitors who were assigned to the tercio seemed to dislike Gonzalez just as much as everyone else did, and had smirked and overruled him when Don Vincente had sent runners to them to come at their earliest convenience and pointedly eaten a large portion of the local ham in front of them. Also fortunately, all three inquisitors had been out of sight when the thick, rich, salty fat on the ham—which ordinarily Don Vincente was rather partial to—had hit his stomach. When this mixed with the remains of the previous night's drinking, he had become copiously ill. The experience had not made him any better disposed toward the good father.
"—and, of course, you will open fire immediately to suppress this ungodly disorder." Don Vincente realized that the memory of throwing up an otherwise perfectly good portion of ham had distracted him from whatever the obnoxious priest was bleating about this time.
"I shall, of course, take all proper military measures, Father Gonzalez," Don Vincente said as smoothly as he could manage. "And now if you would be so good as to retire, I believe my men are commencing to advance."
"I am not afraid to be in the forefront of God's work against those stirred to impious revolt by—"
"Indeed not, Father Gonzalez," Don Vincente interrupted, over the sound of his men's booted feet and of shouldered muskets clanging on gorgets, "and if my words have suggested as much then I, Don Vincente Jose-Maria Castro y Papas most humbly apologize. But the good father is standing in the way of what will likely be my men's first volley of musket fire."
"Ah." Gonzalez tried to scurry to the rear without appearing to hurry.
Don Vincente savagely suppressed the wish that he could have left Gonzalez directly in front of a hundred soldiers with loaded muskets while he gave the order to fire. Certainly, the sight of an inquisitor being riddled with bullets would have placated the crowd like little else; the Holy Office was no more popular in Italy than it was in Spain. But the wretched man's death would doubtless have created yet more paperwork. Don Vincente sighed, and turned to watch his men approach along the street from where he had had them form up out of sight of the crowd. "Sergeant," he called. "Are the men loaded?"