The Cannon Law—ARC(63)

Giovanna didn't seem fazed by it one bit. She was halfway to the reception desk before Frank was done gawking. A few quick words with the clerk there—Frank noticed that the seventeenth century had had its say and there wasn't a female receptionist, but a guy who'd been stuffed into smart clothes and given a quill and ledger to sign folks in and out—and she was back. "The dottoressa will be told we are here, someone will tell us when it is time to go in." Sure enough, Frank could see a messenger trotting off, some kid who looked maybe fourteen. The seventeenth century was getting its way on that score as well, whatever the folks back in Grantville might have had to say about child labor.



"Hey, guys!" Sharon's voice called from the turn of the magnificent marble staircase at the other end of the entrance hall. Frank sneaked a look and saw the receptionist wearing a pained expression at the manner in which Sharon was trampling over the right way of doing things as he saw it. And then Sharon came in to view, trailed by the slightly sheepish-looking messenger.



"Hi, Sharon. Are we early?" Frank wasn't entirely sure. The battery in his watch had finally run out the year before. The timekeeping you got from Rome's church bells was only good to within ten minutes or so and varied from street to street depending on which church you could hear best.



Sharon waved it aside. "Close enough guys, come on up. I've got an examination room up here at the back where the light's good."



The way to the examination room took them past a door from behind which could be heard the sounds of a full-on sword fight. Sharon must have seen the looks on Frank and Giovanna's faces, because she laughed. "Ruy's putting the Marines through their morning sword-drill. Some days you can see the testosterone seeping under the door."



"Figures," Frank said, and chuckled. "Jocks, eh?"



"Thing is," Sharon said, "Ruy would agree with you. It's just that his notion of how a jock ought to behave would probably astonish most of the guys on your high school football team."



Sharon opened the door to a room that was, if anything, grander than the entrance hall had been. Big, and open, and with huge mullioned windows that looked out over a big garden that was all straight lines and angles, the kind Frank had only ever seen in movies. "Nice place you got here, by the way."



"Ain't it?" Sharon said, with a wry grin. "We pretty much have to spend all this money just to get taken seriously. Even as a doctor." She snorted her contempt for the idea. "Not that there weren't plenty of people in the twentieth century who had the same fool idea, mind."



Frank decided to take her word for it. "So, uh, I should go amuse myself while you and Giovanna, uh—"



Actually, Frank wasn't at all sure what the hell was going to happen and, really, didn't want to. Giovanna and Sharon were exchanging a look that simply said: "Men." "I'll, uh, go look in on Ruy and the guys, doing, uh, guy stuff, okay?" He beat it before they could mock him any more.



When he opened the door to the training room—apparently a ballroom the rest of the time—it looked like the whole room had been turned in to a gigantic human-powered mincing machine. There were about twenty guys in Marine uniforms with leather vests over them paired off around the room and, as far as Frank could tell, fighting. And in the middle, his back to Frank and glaring at one pair who had apparently stopped for a breather, was Ruy Sanchez.



"Señor Faul!" He was bellowing. "The rapier for honor, the back-sword for duty, your countrymen say! Pray you remember it! If Señor Crombie should open himself to a kick in the crotch as he has just done, you will administer him one, with great force! Duty is to kill the enemy, not treat with him as a gentleman! Now, again! And this time, Crombie, close your stance because if Faul doesn't smash your balls for you, I, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, most surely will!"



The two Marines came to guard positions. Frank thought that was the right word, anyway, although what he knew about fencing pretty much stopped at knowing the pointy end went toward your opponent. There was a blur of steel. Clearly Crombie didn't make the same mistake again because the exchange ended with Faul yelping, saying something that was almost certainly filthy in Gaelic, and clutching his forearm.



"Better," Sanchez shouted. Without turning around: "Señor Stone! So good to see you! Will you join us?"



Frank looked around—like there's another Señor Stone in here, dummy, he thought. "I, uh, don't have a sword."



"A lack we can remedy," Sanchez said. "You will find a box of practice sabers to your right, and a jacket which will fit you there also."