Eric Flint - 1635 - The Cannon Law

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1635: The Cannon Law—ARC

Eric Flint &

Andrew Dennis

Advance Reader Copy

Unproofed

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are

fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN 10: 1-4165-0938-0

ISBN 13: 978-1-4165-0938-7

Cover art by Tom Kidd

First printing, October 2006

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pages by Joy Freeman (www.pagesbyjoy.com)

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication—t/k

Map of Italy

(t/k: from 1634: The Galileo Affair)

Map of Rome

(t/k: new map)

Books by Eric Flint

Ring of Fire series:

1632 by Eric Flint

1633 by Eric Flint & David Weber

Ring of Fire ed. by Eric Flint

1634: The Galileo Affair by Eric Flint & Andrew Dennis

Grantville Gazette ed. by Eric Flint

Grantville Gazette II ed. by Eric Flint

1634: The Ram Rebellion by Eric Flint with Virginia DeMarce et al.

1635: The Cannon Law with Andrew Dennis

Grantville Gazette III ed. by Eric Flint (forthcoming)

Joe's World series:

The Philosophical Strangler

Forward the Mage (with Richard Roach)

Mother of Demons

Crown of Slaves (with David Weber)

The Course of Empire (with K.D. Wentworth)

With Mercedes Lackey

& Dave Freer:

The Shadow of the Lion

This Rough Magic

With Dave Freer:

Rats, Bats & Vats

The Rats, The Bats & The Ugly

Pyramid Scheme

With David Drake:

The Tyrant

The Belisarius Series

with David Drake:

An Oblique Approach

In the Heart of Darkness

Destiny's Shield

Fortune's Stroke

The Tide of Victory

The Dance of Time

Edited with David Drake

& Jim Baen

The World Turned Upside Down

With Ryk E. Spoor:

Mountain Magic (with David Drake & Henry Kuttner)

Boundary

The Epic Struggle for Freedom and Justice Continues!

Sequel to the New York Times Bestseller

1634: The Galileo Affair

Part One

January 1635

Chapter 1

Naples

Don Vincente Jose-Maria Castro y Papas, Captain in His Most Catholic Majesty's Army in the Two

Sicilies, tried sneering at the stack of paperwork and the books and ledgers of the company he

commanded. It was of no use. The wretched things remained there, sneering back at him.

Somehow, the filthy business of bureaucracy was everywhere nowadays, and the profession of arms was

no refuge. Especially not in a newly augmented tercio dragged from its depot and filled out by a small

horde of militia men and new recruits. And especially not when the arms he was supposed to profess

were light muskets.

Certainly, they were an excellent weapon, compared with arquebuses, and far more wieldy than the

heavy muskets they were replacing—had replaced, in some armies. A damnably expensive one,

compared with just about anything, which was the reason Don Vincente's company had gotten so few,

thus far. But the exploits of Turenne had been noted in Madrid, and the weapons had been identified as

central to the small morsels of pride he had salvaged from France's shame. The exploits of the Swede

with the lighter weapons had also been noted.

In times past, Spanish soldiers were expected to buy their own arquebuses. But the rapid changes

brought by the Americans who had arrived in the Ring of Fire had altered military practices as

well—indeed, perhaps military practices more than anything.

And so, throughout the Spanish army, which remained the best equipped and organized fighting force

west of the Turk, companies and tercios that would otherwise have been unable to afford such equipment

were receiving unexpected bounties.

For which they were expected to account. In triplicate. On top of all the utter, utter crap that was

catching up with them after three moves in as many months around Spain before they had, with hardly

any warning, been shipped out from Spain, filled out at the last minute with a collection of recruits whose

appetite for war had been whetted by tales of the plunder Don Fernando's forces had received for their

part in the sack of the Low Countries. Even after hearing about Don Fernando's orders to limit the

looting, Don Vincente had tortured himself with visions of luckier officers filling their boots with Dutch

gold. Which was a true irony, indeed. For in every other way the news out of Madrid was of deep

displeasure with His Majesty's little brother for what he had done. For the recruiting parties, the word

was all of how well Spanish Arms had fared. For those unlucky enough not to have gone with Don

Fernando, however, it was just another opportunity to get rich on something other than a captain's pay

that had been sorely, sorely missed. He had joined hoping for plunder somewhere, anywhere he could

find it. Instead, he had found himself just about staying ahead of his expenses by taking money to

exchange to less and less fashionable tercios, invariably managing to exchange out of a company before it

was posted somewhere with an opportunity for loot.

Which had its advantages, admittedly. He had been quietly bemoaning his ill luck in leaving his last

posting just before they were sent to Flanders when the news of the massacre at Wartburg came in, in

which his replacement had died in the Americans' Greek Fire.

"Don Vincente?"

It was Sergeant Ezquerra, at the door of Don Vincente's billet, an upper room in a taverna on the road

out of Naples that had been commandeered. Not, it had to be said, a good inn, but the patron kept a

decent if simple table and a reasonable cellar. The more exalted officers had made themselves

comfortable with the local grandees, whom in theory they were there to protect from riotous mobs, but

Don Vincente was being careful with his money. He could have been still more careful with it if the

barracks quarter around the viceroy's palace in town had not been full to bursting before they had

arrived. But Don Vincente was accustomed to execrable luck.

"Come," Don Vincente said, scooting his chair back from the folding table he had his paperwork stacked

on. "I grow eager for interruptions. Even from you."

"This is good, Don Vincente," Ezquerra said, "it does a man good to get away from the work from time

to time. Especially the paperwork, which is unmanly."

"Away from the work, eh? A medicine you imbibe in large doses, I note, Sergeant." Don Vincente had

never learned the man's first name, despite in theory having it among the paperwork for the company.

There was a blank where the man's baptismal name was supposed to be recorded. It would hardly

surprise Don Vincente to learn that the man had never been baptized. Ezquerra was the kind of fellow

who, if he had remained as a peasant rather than joining the army, would have been a sore trial to his

local gentry as a poacher and all-round nuisance who was just marginally too useful at whatever trade he

pursued to have quietly flogged to death.

How long ago Ezquerra had left wherever he was from was a mystery. His date of birth was listed as

unknown, and where exactly he was from was also unclear, except that Don Vincente had gathered one

way or another that it was near Badajoz. He had the typical wiry-little-mountain-man look of so many

from those parts, and the few of his claimed relatives that Don Vincente had seen—there were several in

the army—had a similar look about them. Of course, a long-service soldier would have relatives in many

parts of Spain, the lax approach to marriage and casual bastardy among the common soldiers being what

it was.

"Not today, Don Vincente. Today I have neglected my health on your behalf." The sergeant left the

statement hanging there, and waited, leaning on the doorpost, for a response.

Don Vincente glared at him. Truth be told, the sergeant was very good at his job. It was simply that for

some reason being caught actually working by any of his officers seemed to be a source of terror to the

man. Don Vincente hoped one day to actually see Ezquerra doing something to ensure that the company

was as well turned-out and ready for action as they usually were. Of course, they were also always ready

for the whorehouse and as much cheap drink as they could get inside themselves, but that was soldiers

for you. The chaplains and the inquisitors didn't like it, but after getting away from his family's estates ten

years before, Don Vincente had come to take a broader view of matters of the faith. And morals. And,

especially, priests.

After some moments, Don Vincente realized that he was going to have to ask. "And, pray, what has

caused this unwonted self-mortification?"

"Father Gonzalez again." Ezquerra was now grinning, although humor was not the usual feeling the good

father provoked.

Don Vincente raised an eyebrow. "He's found another secret Jew?" The Inquisition seemed to be paying

particular attention to the army recently, and instead of only occasionally appearing anywhere they could

smell soldiers—or outside their comfortable offices at all—there seemed to have been a small rain of the

pestilential creatures recently. Before they had sailed from Spain they had been visited with a plague of

them. A biblical plague in truth. Possibly of frogs. They croaked enough.

Father Gonzalez was the representative of the Inquisition in this small billet town just outside Naples that

Don Vincente and several of his brother officers had been visited with. He was exactly the kind of priest

that one would expect a senior inquisitor to put forward for a long posting away from the home tribunal,

with no definite date of return.

"No, Don Vincente. He seems to think that the men are given to dissipation and licentious pleasures."

Ezquerra's grin grew even broader. They had been putting up with Gonzalez for nearly two months

already, and it seemed to have escaped his notice until now? It was certainly not a subject that seemed

greatly to exercise the company's regular chaplain, although his being sober enough to notice was not a

common event.

There was a long pause. Don Vincente stared at Sergeant Ezquerra. Sergeant Ezquerra stared at Don

Vincente. At length, Don Vincente said, "And have you said anything to the men about this?"

"Naturally," Ezquerra said, grinning from ear to ear, "I told them to stop it."

"Did you make it an order?" Don Vincente asked, suddenly overtaken by morbid curiosity.

Ezquerra snorted. "Of course. I ordered them not to let the good father catch them fornicating or

insensible with drink."

Don Vincente parsed that one with no small care. It seemed to pass muster in every useful way, and was,

indeed, technically an order to the men to stop doing those things. "Surely this small exertion came as no

great threat to your health?"

Ezquerra sighed deeply. "No, Don Vincente. What has brought me to the very brink of ruin, Don

Vincente, was going about every billet to pass on the order, and then getting around all the whorehouses

in Naples before Father Gonzalez got to them so I could be sure none of the men were in them at the

time."

"And why did you not tell me first?" Don Vincente realized as he said it that he had laid himself wide

open.

"I checked the whorehouses before coming here, Don Vincente," Ezquerra said, not a muscle in his face

moving as he pounced on the opportunity. And, of course, did so without once saying anything that could

be—quite—construed as disrespect for an officer.

"Most diligent of you." Don Vincente kept his face just as straight as the sergeant did. In the nearly three

years he had known the man, he had never caught Ezquerra in outright disrespect once, but heard him

say things that would earn a demotion and flogging from an officer with less of a sense of humor hundreds

of times.

The man had been tentative at first, certainly. Had covered up his slack ways with obvious displays of

punctilio when he thought Don Vincente had been watching. Over time, Don Vincente discovered that

Ezquerra and his fellow sergeants and the cabos who assisted them had turned the company into

something that ran itself. The previous captain, from whom Don Vincente had bought the commission as

an investment in his ongoing project to improve the modest family fortunes, had been an absentee like

many officers. In his absence, Ezquerra had quietly taken over the company as a body of fighting men.

Lieutenants had come and gone, not taking much time or trouble over the company as they sought

advancement. No officer had remained long enough to bring any subalterns to the company, for which

Don Vincente was grateful. He had himself learned much as a young man just left home from the sergeant

he had had when he first bought an ensign's commission. What would happen to an ensign left in the

clutches of Ezquerra did not bear thinking about. Except, possibly, by a theologian contemplating

possible routes to utter perdition.

"Thank you, Captain Don Vincente," Ezquerra said, grinning.

"Is there more? Doubtless I shall now be able to say with perfect truth that our soldiers have been

ordered to stop being soldiers. But I feel certain you would not have strained yourself by coming up the

stairs behind you if there had not been more to report. Usually, you hang around until I come down."

Ezquerra nodded. "There is more, Don Vincente, yes." The man's face grew serious. "While visiting an

establishment with which the Captain will doubtless be unfamiliar, it being a house of prostitution of high

repute and even higher prices, I chanced to meet my third cousin, who is orderly to Colonel—"

Don Vincente interrupted him with an upraised hand. If the sergeant had a fault, it was that if he was

speaking of someone he was in some way related to, he could be quite tiresomely long-winded. "What

did your cousin tell you?" he asked.

"Third cousin, Don Vincente." Ezquerra had a hurt tone in his voice. "And he told me that there is a

reception in town tonight for the cardinal, who is visiting. Which may explain why Father Gonzalez,

indeed all the inquisitors, are acting like their crabs are biting particularly hard."

"Which cardinal?"

"Borja," Ezquerra said, "the one that was viceroy in Naples before."

"And so Gonzalez's crabs are—hold on, Gonzalez has crabs? How?" Don Vincente felt rather pleased to

have spotted this one.

"The good father uses the same whorehouse as my third cousin's colonel."

"That was what I was wondering about. Surely even whores have standards?"

Ezquerra shrugged. "True, the ordinary sort. But these are the kind who service gentlemen, so their

standards are lower."

Don Vincente grinned ruefully. It was too much to expect that he would out-shoot his sergeant. He much

suspected the sergeant was a very clever man who, had he not been born in a one-room shack

somewhere in the mountains, would have made a great deal of the opportunities he would have had. And

yet God in his wisdom had chosen to place a man of such talent in the station he occupied. "Still,

knowing why Father Gonzalez has a even more of a hair up his ass than usual does nothing to help deal

with the situation. Will the men be sensible about this, until Gonzalez calms down at least?"

"The old-timers, yes. All of these new fish we got in Barcelona? I can only hope. We need a fight to get

them steadied down."

Don Vincente stroked his beard for a moment. "And there seem to be no prospects of that at the

moment, I think. We missed Don Fernando's expedition, and it looks like we're going to miss whatever

they've got planned for France. Maybe we'll get to crack some Italian heads?" He left the question

hanging for Ezquerra to speculate on. Not, strictly, proper to invite a common soldier into one's

confidence, but he had come to find Ezquerra's experience useful.

"Who knows?" Ezquerra shrugged. "From what I hear, everyone hereabouts was ready for revolt last

year, but it seems a little quieter this year, so far. Although it's not really the rioting season right now.

Prices are low."

That would be about right, Don Vincente mused. The harvests were only a few months past, and food

remained plentiful. So prices were low, the winters hereabouts were not particularly harsh, and as far as

Italians were ever content, the Neapolitans seemed to be content.

"That said," Ezquerra went on, "they won't like having so many of us billeted here. We've only been here

a week, but there have been soldiers arriving for a month. And I hear that some of the grumbling has

already started."

"What about?" There were some predictable answers to that, but it paid to ask.

"Requisitions and foraging, mostly," Ezquerra said. "The usual. There will be more. We have a lot of kids

who've just joined. Many of them away from home for the first time. There will be trouble. We seem to

have gotten away with it so far, though I hear someone killed an Italian in a tavern brawl a couple of

nights ago. There wasn't much of an outcry over it, but it's the kind of thing we can expect."

"I know, I know," Don Vincente said. "Well, I suppose we can hope and pray that Borja's arrival does

not portend more trouble. I understand he was not popular when he was viceroy."

Ezquerra shrugged. "The Captain will know more of such things than I."

Don Vincente thought back over what he had, in fact, heard. "Now I think about it," he said, "it does

seem strange. The holy father ordered Borja out of Rome last year, as I recall, and ordered him to live in

his diocese. I wonder why he's back in Italy? It might be thought disobedient to the holy father."

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1635:TheCannonLaw—ARCEricFlint&AndrewDennisAdvanceReaderCopyUnproofedThisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisbookarefictional,andanyresemblancetorealpeopleorincidentsispurelycoincidental.1635:TheCannonLawCopyright©2006byEricFlint&AndrewDennisAllrightsreserved,includingtherightto...

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