Frank didn't doubt that someone would take a peek later anyway, but by then the Stone boys would have taken the more outre stuff out of it and hidden it somewhere safer. Gerry was the youngest of the brothers and he'd packed the thing-which meant that "outre" would be outre indeed.

The maid gave Gerry an odd look. Not puzzled so much as . . .

Calculating.

A thought came to Frank, and he decided to take a chance. "Committee?" he asked, making sure to use the English term.

"Yes," the maid hissed softly. "You are the Committee with the Grantville embassy?" Her English was surprisingly good, aside from a heavy accent. But Frank thought the accent was a charming as the rest of her.

"Yup," he said, extending a hand. "All three of us, actually. You learned English for us?"

"No." She took his hand a bit shyly, not shaking it so much as just holding it. "My father make us learn, so we can work with Sir Henry Hider. And then he made us study even harder, when we learned you were coming to Venice."

"Who's Hider?" Frank asked, feeling a sudden twinge of anxiety. Well. Jealousy, to be precise. Did some lousy Brit already have the inside track with the girl?

"Steady on there, podnuh," Gerry said. "Ma'am," he said, sweeping off the silly cavalier hat he'd taken to wearing, "might we have the privilege of your name?"

Frank nodded. The courtly manners thing might be a good idea after all. It had seemed excruciating stuff when a small assortment of Nasis and other gentry had been giving them crash-courses in current manners-Dad's attempts had been hilarious at first until he seemed to just accelerate ahead of everyone-but the effects could be impressive. Frank swept his baseball cap off with the hand that the maid wasn't holding-score one, he realized, she hadn't let go yet. "Lady," he said, in his best shot at the Italian language, "permit me the honor of naming my brothers Gerry and Ron Stone, and I am Frank, very much at your service. And you are?"

The giggles suggested he'd got it wrong, but at least in an amusing way.

"Giovanna Marcoli. My father Antonio is the-what is the word for capo?-of the Committee of Correspondence in Venice." The girl straightened proudly. "All of north Italy-even Milan! Even though he is only a metalworker."

She giggled again, and Frank realized her amusement had been at the notion of herself as a Lady. Craftsmen were respected enough, in Venice, but very far removed in social terms from the Venetian noble merchant families. The Case Vecchie, Frank thought they called themselves-the "Old Houses."

Giggling or not, Giovanna still hadn't relinquished his hand. Frank was in no hurry for her to do so. The hand was of a piece with the girl herself-small, warm, and very well shaped. "Sir Henry is a merchant and a man of some note in Venice," she continued, "if you like I will tell you more of him later?"

"Sure," said Ron. The middle of the three Stone brothers had just turned eighteen, and had a slightly-too-eager tone in his voice. No, make that much-too-eager. He took off his hat, an English foghat he'd gotten somewhere, just to make sure Frank was outdone in the dumbass headgear stakes. "Thanks."

Great, thought Frank, he's going to hump her leg any minute. Actually, he could feel that urge himself. Please, please, please, he thought, let Giovanna not turn out to be attached or something. Short, brunette, dark-eyed, and-and-

Perfect.

Damn. Frank was sure he'd blow it.

As if foretelling his doom, Giovanna finally let go of his hand and frowned. Suddenly, she seemed all business.

"Messer . . . Gerry, it is?" Giovanna asked. "Why must I not touch that bag?"

"This bag?" Gerry said, hoisting it up with a grunt of effort.

"Yes. Is it secret to you or to the Committee?"

"Both, in a manner of speaking." Gerry crossed the room to a table to unpack it.

Frank went over to watch. He'd been kind of curious himself.

"Now," said Gerry, "I expect y'all got a thing or two on sale hereabouts in Venice for the man of action, but I figured on being prepared, one way or another." He looked around to his audience, which was now everyone in the room.

"Y'see," he went on, "I figure never to need any of this stuff. On the other hand, I figure Darryl figured on that, too, and look where he ended up." He paused. "I sure wish I knew what that guy is doing, still locked up in the Tower. I figured he'd have taken it on the lam by now, but maybe he's waiting for-"

"Gerry!" Frank said, pointing. "The bag?"

Gerry visibly wrenched his train of thought back off the track of the mayhem he was missing elsewhere. "What? Oh, sure. The bag. Well, lessee now. We got pistols, six of, modern, for the three of us. Well, not 'modern' modern; I mean state-of-the-art seventeenth-century-style flintlocks. Made by the fellers good old Mister Santee is trainin' up. They're small and look down-time, only they got rifling and they take minie balls. To look at, nothing much, but way better than anything here and they don't say up-time to anyone who sees 'em."

"Messer Gerry?" Giovanna interrupted, "those English words you used? 'Up-time'? 'Down-time'?"

"Oh, sorry," Gerry said. "Up-time is anyone from the twenty-first century. Americans, like us. Down-time means everyone else."

Giovanna nodded. Frank found the effect distracting. Somehow a girl could be a lot sexier buttoned up to the collar than in shorts and a T-shirt. It was all very mysterious. He could see out of the corner of his eye that Ron was not paying a whit of attention to their brother Gerry. It was a mercy his tongue wasn't hanging out.

"Anyway," Gerry was continuing, "we got some explosives and detonators, slowmatch, some corned power for reloads, rope, some tools for bullet-making-oh, and that reminds me, Captain Lennox let me put the ammo crate on the Marines' packhorse, I gotta collect that later."

"Eh?" Frank said. "How much ammo did you bring?" He was surprised that Gerry had brought more than three guns. Still another surprise was that he'd brought enough ammo to show he was expecting to use them seriously, because Gerry wasn't anyone's notion of a good shot. Some plinking and a few sessions with borrowed pistols was all the practice he'd had. Gerry's talents ran more toward pyrotechnic pranks, booby traps and practical jokes. It seemed that Gerry was forgetting that he'd been raised on a hippie commune, not in the hillbilly-hard-ass school that had turned out the likes of Harry Lefferts and Darryl McCarthy. It was kind of sad to watch.

"Just a couple of boxes for the pistols, mostly the special bullets. We can buy powder here, but obviously we won't find any minie balls. I got some sulfa drugs, too. Dad's shop is turning that stuff out at a pretty good clip nowadays, and I figure it'll be a while before we can get set up to do the same down here. Wish it was as easy to make chloramphenicol." He seemed wholly matter-of-fact about it.

Ron beat Frank to it. "Gerry? Are you expecting to fight a war or something?"

That made two mental sighs of relief for Frank. First, that if Ron was spotting it as well, Gerry was clearly off the deep end. And, second, that Ron was finally paying attention to his surroundings and not just drooling down his shirtfront.

"Yeah," said Frank, "hadn't you noticed we have Marines along to do that sort of thing? Like, professional soldiers? Remember? Big, gloomy Scots guys on horses?"

Gerry waved a hand. "Sure, sure. Though Billy's as American as you and me and I'd hardly call Conrad a 'Scot,' much less 'gloomy.' But like I say, better to have and not need, than-"

"Whatever," said Frank, exasperated. "What else'd you bring, Rambo? Nerve gas? Nukes? Punjee sticks?"

"Mock all you want, flower-child." Gerry said it flatly.

Frank could feel the mood turning ugly. All three of them had had to listen to talk like that back up-time, and had gotten a rep for the elaborate revenges they humiliated the offending jocks with. Hearing it from his own brother was . . .

He forced it down. "Cool it, okay, man? Just because I think you're overdoing it, no need to get heavy, all right? Just my opinion, is all."

Gerry took the hint. "Ah," he said. "Mayhem is still on the menu, which is, like a bummer. But the whole destruction trip is just outsville. Because, like, I brought this, in case it turned out this was the bag we were all, like, into, maaan."

He reached into the bag with both hands, grunted a little, and lifted out an oblong steel box with snap-catches holding it shut and wire handles at either end. It was army surplus, and at one time it had been painted olive drab which, along with the rust, still showed through in a few places. Most of it was covered in flowers and peace signs and a really drunken-looking mandala painted on in lurid enamel paint. The lid had Make love, Not war scrawled on it in bright orange balloon script.

"Cool," said Ron.

"Heaveeeee," added Frank, giving the voice everything he had before realizing that Giovanna was now looking at all of them funny.

"Yup." Gerry patted the lid of the box gently, grinning from ear to ear. "I brung the Hippie Flower Child Peace and Love Revenge Kit."

Frank nodded, savoring the memory of some truly outstanding pranks. In the years before the Ring of Fire, they'd often enough been confusion to the jocks. "The Lothlorien Hippie Ninja clan is once again ready to wreak havoc in the darkness." He turned to Giovanna. "On no account open that box."

"Please, why?" She looked worried.

"Because, milady," Gerry said, "this box contains everything you need to embarrass and humiliate anyone who annoys you. We are highly trained and highly motivated pranksters, and this box contains the old standards of our repertoire. Guys, it's all in working order, and what with Dad opening his lab I added a few new items."