The Cannon Law—ARC(90)

Damned Spaniards!



It wasn't so much that the militia was breaking heads, although if it had been women and kids, that'd be different. A lot different. It was the fact that they were doing it at the bidding of foreigners. Being Romans, big-city folk from a very cosmopolitan city, they had a much suppler notion of what constituted "foreign" than you got out in the sticks. The year before, Frank had met one old guy who figured foreign parts started about ten miles from his house, any direction. Romans, though, while they preferred fellow Romans, were pretty much okay with most other Italians. So the Committee weren't foreigners, much. Venetians, to be sure, and apt to be a bit strange. Frank seemed to be either getting a bye as an honorary Venetian, or, as an American, they were assuming—until they met him—that he was too weird to count one way or the other. Foreign, but an okay kind of foreign. Not trying to be the boss of anyone. Looking back, Frank realized that he'd probably done himself good by starting out low-key. He'd done it to avoid the Inquisition, but it'd probably stood him in good stead with the people he was trying to reach. Let him earn some trust and credibility before he tried anything. So now, he had some to spend with his neighbors, when they were pissed off enough to be buying.



He probably still couldn't lead them to much of anything, mind. The folks who'd nearly gotten killed here last night had been royally ticked off and looking for someone to beat on good and hard. Frank had just directed them to the spot they wanted to go anyway. No biggie. Afterward, he hadn't even been able to lead them all to an open bar. Still, he'd work with what he'd got.



Then he heard the cheers. Uh oh.



Frank didn't know where he'd acquired his instinct for trouble, but his chicken-sense was tingling now. It didn't take long to find out why.



The news went through the place quickly:



They've gone to the Villa Borja.



Hundreds of guys.



Some of 'em got weapons.



They're going to run that fat son-of-a-bitch Spaniard out of town.



Frank pasted a smile on. Not a thing he could do about it, clear over the other side of the city. And trying to stop anything would just get him ignored.



Inside of five minutes, the place was nearly empty again. Everyone had gone to the Villa Borja, to find the nearest Spaniard or just to look for trouble.



Frank sat down and wondered what tomorrow morning would look like.



Another long, long night.



"What are they chanting?" Borja asked Ferrigno. The cardinal and his secretary were standing halfway along the drive of the Villa Borja, just about able to see, at a hundred yards' distance, the crowd gathered about the iron gate. Enough of them had torches and lanterns that it was possible to see them, and the lanterns at the gatehouse made them quite acceptably visible. Borja's people had roused him at this late hour—certainly past midnight—in a state of near-panic about a mob at the gates. What was present certainly fit the description well enough. Borja could see, even at this distance and with his ageing eyes, that the assorted refuse who had come to his threshold were ill dressed and filthy looking. He offered a small prayer of thanks that he stood upwind.



"Insults to Your Eminence," Ferrigno said, without being specific. Roused from bed after midnight, disturbed at his rest by a mob of ruffians and jeered at and calumnied by utter scum? Not even the most forbearing master would be in a good humor, and at such times even the most obtuse servant walked with a nervous tread. How wrong Ferrigno was, this time, although Borja reflected that it was no great folly to decline to repeat the slur.



Borja smiled. It was being chanted clearly enough that he could determine exactly what the slander was. Exactly what he wanted, in general, dislike the specifics though he might. "And how many would you say there are?"



"Several hundred, Your Eminence." Ferrigno's tone remained nervous. The estimate seemed about right, although the company of mercenary musketeers Borja had kept on hand for just such an eventuality seemed, for the moment, to be sufficient threat to keep them from coming over the walls of the estate or trying to force the gate. Ferrigno seemed to find that nearly as alarming as the prospect of the cardinal's displeasure.



Of course, Ferrigno had not heard everything that had gone on. Nor was he privy to everything that Borja had compassed in his designs—much of that was kept only in the secret counsels of Borja's own heart. The orders he had received from Olivares—who was presumptious in the extreme to give such to a prince of the church—had encompassed particular ends purely to Spain's advantage. It was only with the guidance of the Holy Spirit that Borja had been able to see the best and most effective way to do that, and at the same time cut out the rot growing at the heart of Christ's Body on Earth. Ferrigno had been gifted with no such insight. Nor had he been present at Borja's meetings with Osuna, when the fullest possibilities of what might be achieved had been discussed between the two men.