"1635-The Cannon Law ARC" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ring of Fire 5 - 1635_ Cannon Law (.html.jpg ARC))

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 [i]exactly[/i] 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. [p]

"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 [i]now[/i]? 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. [p]

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?" [p]

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

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

Ezquerra snorted. "Of course. I ordered them not to let the good father catch them fornicating or insensible with drink." [p]

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?" [p]

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." [p]

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

"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~mdash;quite~mdash;construed as disrespect for an officer. [p]

"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. [p]

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. [p]

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. [p]

"Thank you, Captain Don Vincente," Ezquerra said, grinning. [p]

"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." [p]

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~mdash;" [p]

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. [p]

"[i]Third[/i] 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." [p]

"Which cardinal?" [p]

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

"And so Gonzalez's crabs are~mdash;hold on, Gonzalez has [i]crabs[/i]? How?" Don Vincente felt rather pleased to have spotted this one. [p]

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

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

Ezquerra shrugged. "True, the ordinary sort. But these are the kind who service gentlemen, so their standards are lower." [p]

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 [i]why[/i] 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?" [p]