1635: THE CANNON LAW – snippet 59:
CHAPTER 22
Rome
Sharon had been in the Palazzo Barberini for less than an hour, and was already feeling under siege. Ruy had wandered off to discuss poetry with someone or other—Sharon suspected that he almost certainly had the poor fellow completely confused by now—and she had been, well, mobbed was the only word for it, by every single one of the physicists, physicians, astronomers and in a couple of cases outright charlatans that His Eminence Cardinal Antonio Barberini seemed to have surrounded himself with.
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SOME GOLDEN HARBOR – snippet 41: "I had Hogg buy the boat for us," said Tovera at the tiller of the taxi. She wore a waterman's garments: baggy shorts, baggy shirt, and a vest with bright red embroidery. Her hat was a flat cone woven from split reeds and shaded her face completely. "He's better at that sort of thing than I am." She tittered. "I suppose he bought the boat," she added. "Perhaps he cut the owner's throat instead. Though I could've handled that myself." "I'm sure Hogg wouldn't kill anyone unless he thought they really needed it, Tovera," Adele said with a deadpan expression. "Unless we were shorter of money than I believe to be the case at present, of course." (more…)
1635: THE CANNON LAW – snippet 58:
They shot the bolts and opened the big double door wide in front of Frank. He stepped out, not letting himself have any time to chicken out. The street was dark, apart from where light spilled out from the couple of other buildings that were occupied around here. Frank’s first guess had been off. There were maybe a dozen guys out there. All of them at least half drunk, if not more. A couple had been stood right by the door, and having it open in front of them had clearly come as a surprise. Well, Frank thought, don’t waste it.
“What are you doing, you sons of whores?” he roared, stepping right up to the nearest drunk.. The guy looked like he’d been stunned. Certainly not about to call Frank’s bluff.
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1635: THE CANNON LAW – snippet 57:
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—?”
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SOME GOLDEN HARBOR – snippet 39:
The noise from the crowd outside was vibrantly excited, and the Councilors who’d reached the anteroom were talking in spiky concern as Daniel led his party down the balcony stairs. He stretched his arms, overhead and then back behind him, to loosen the muscles. His left shoulder throbbed from the knock the club’d given him, but he had full strength and movement in the limb.
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SOME GOLDEN HARBOR – snippet 39:
The noise from the crowd outside was vibrantly excited, and the Councilors who’d reached the anteroom were talking in spiky concern as Daniel led his party down the balcony stairs. He stretched his arms, overhead and then back behind him, to loosen the muscles. His left shoulder throbbed from the knock the club’d given him, but he had full strength and movement in the limb.
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SOME GOLDEN HARBOR – snippet 38:
CHAPTER 10: Charlestown on Bennaria
The Council Hall was a round, domed building. The center of the polished stone floor was white; twenty-seven backless chairs were set around the black border. There were balconies on both sides. Neither would hold more than a dozen people, but Adele, Daniel and Luff had the left-hand one to themselves.
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1635: THE CANNON LAW – snippet 56:
CHAPTER 21
Rome
Frank wasn’t liking the atmosphere in his club one little bit. It wasn’t that the place was rowdy, at all. If anything, the number of people in the place was a bit light for a Saturday night. It was quiet, too. The usual pick-up band—some combination of French Andree, Martino, Andreas and Fabrizzio plus whoever wanted to join them—weren’t in and no-one seemed to be ready to take up the slack. And the people who were in were largely sitting quietly and talking well below the usual drunken Italian volume.
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1635: THE CANNON LAW – snippet 55:
Barberini thought further. Nothing suggested itself. The report he would give to his uncle would be an uncomfortable one. He tried to anticipate the course of that audience. His Holiness would almost certainly suggest that approaching the problem from its fundamentals would yield results; the schools of philosophy and theology he had adhered to all his life left clear imprints on the way he thought. So, what was at the root of Borja’s stratagem? “They are making allegations about the influence of the United States of Europe on His Holiness, yes?” he said.
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SOME GOLDEN HARBOR – snippet 37:
The entertainer who called himself Elemere sat at the rotated astrogator’s console of the Princess Cecile, facing the gathered officers. He was drinking brandy that Hogg’d borrowed from a spacer just back from liberty. Adele didn’t suppose the liquor was of the best quality, but Elemere wasn’t complaining. He held his mug in both hands, huddling over it and taking frequent drinks. He was shivering and seemed on the verge of going into shock.
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