"Sorry, I was just reading some more of this. It makes it look like I wanted to insult everyone I know around here. About the only thing I left out, according to this, is that I think everyone in Rome is fucking his own sister and killed his mother."
Piero chuckled. "Well, if you read it one way, it's like you asked everyone to whore his sister out."
"It ain't funny, Piero. We got to do something about this, man."
Piero cleared his throat. "Well, actually, you've got to do something about it. Only reason I'm here is, ah, I'm avoiding someone." He flashed a grin. "I kind of made a start on the whole holding women in common thing last week, and I figured no one was going to come looking here. Maybe things'll blow over, though."
"I don't see how they will. Whoever's printing these things still has a printing press and no one seems to know who it is. Benito's been asking the street kids, but you know how they are if you ask them questions."
"I was thinking more about the husband I pissed off, but you have a point. Anyway, I heard where the one thing the Committee of Correspondence always has is a printing press. So why don't you just get your own word out there?"
"We don't have our press yet. We've only been here a couple of months, and it takes time to get the things shipped from where they're made in Germany."
"All right, why not use a press in Rome?" Piero's tone was of a man explaining things to an idiot.
"I would, but all the legal ones get watched by the Inquisition. All of the ones we spoke to flat told us they wouldn't do any propaganda. They only print stuff for us if it doesn't mention the Committee and isn't political in any way. Kind of narrow-minded of them, and we sneak some stuff in anyway, changing-attitudes kind of stuff that doesn't look like politics unless you know what you're looking for, but—" Frank realized he was babbling. "Look, it's just impossible right now."
Piero shrugged. "I figure it's not so bad, though. Get around and tell people it wasn't you. Get the word spread. Maybe bribe one of those street kids to rat out the guy who gives them the handbills. How much damage can they do before you start answering them?"
"Plenty," Frank said. "And I don't like the idea that someone's going to see this as a good tactic; it could get used against the Committee elsewhere. Oh, not back in the USE, I figure. They do nasty things to people who pull shit like this back there."
Frank was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass and a bellow of alarm and rage. He spun around and leapt to his feet. "What the—?"
It looked like someone had thrown a brick through the window. Frank saw it bounce and tumble to a halt on the floor. He found himself, absurdly, staring hard to see if it had a message tied to it. There didn't need to be. Another window went, and this time it didn't just nearly hit someone, and the roar was of alarm, rage, and pain. Frank winced. The guy it had hit was a big, usually amiable guy name of Giulio, a teamster from just outside Rome who had moved to the city a few years before. He was a real nice guy with hardly a bad word for anyone, right down to the bottom of his third glass of wine, at which point he started getting rattier and rattier until he was a first-class mean drunk. And he'd had a few tonight.
Frank figured he had a few seconds before Giulio ran out of swearwords and did something everyone'd regret, and still less before the place went into a complete uproar. "Benito!" he yelled. "Get the guys down here, I'll get the shutters."
He grabbed the shutters for the nearest window and got them closed just as a brick hurtled through the glass—he sure as hell wasn't going to lean out and close the outer shutters—and banged into the wood, slapping it painfully against his hands. Whoever had thrown that had meant it. From the brief glance he'd gotten out in to the street, there wasn't a crowd there, but there was a sizeable gang of what looked like drunks.
"Frank!" Giovanna shouted. She wasn't a shrinking violet, either. Frank could hear her over even the sudden uproar the place was in. She'd obviously passed Benito on the stairs, and seemed to be in that state of general anger she sometimes got in where it could strike to earth anywhere, like lightning. One time it had been Frank in the way, but more usually it was her brothers. Tonight it looked like being Frank's turn, although he didn't have time. He dashed to the next window, and swerved as another brick came through. This time he didn't get a whack on the hands as he shut the thing up, and he got to the third one and shut it without any trouble. A couple of the regulars had gotten the idea and the other windows were shuttered before Frank could make another move. Everyone else was either on their feet and shouting or crouching under a table and shouting. Dino and Fabrizzio and Benito were back in the room and shouting, and Giovanna and Giulio were squared off and shouting at each other. That was kind of funny, if everything else weren't so freaking serious, Frank thought. Giovanna, five-five in her working shoes, and Giulio, six-three and the best part of two hundred and fifty pounds. Not big muscles, but the kind of fat you get on guys who load carts and wrestle with balky mules for a living. Giovanna was actually doing her best to get in the guy's face, which given that she had to crane her neck took some doing. And Giulio had that ability to bellow back at a woman that comes with a guy who knows he's not going to haul off and belt a girl no matter what.