It was good that he had. In his reverie, Bedmar had turned his eyes to the marvelous coronation of the virgin that adorned the wall above and behind the doge. Thus he had not noticed that Mazzare had come, in the proper order of protocol, to the extraordinary ambassador from the Spanish Netherlands. Purely out of spite, the Venetians had declined to recall Bedmar's last sojourn as ambassador in Venice and so put him considerably farther from the doyenne-some English coin-counter-than he truly merited. Another point on which his mere presence was helping the Americans, he realized. Any nation that defied Spain and the House of Habsburg was sure of a warm reception from Venice.

The cardinal understood the dynamics of power extremely well. The Venetians had gotten cold comfort from France since the Mantuan War and had been at near war with the Turk these hundred years past. Their best option was the United States of Europe, which was powerful enough to be a worthwhile ally against Spain and the Habsburgs where England-still more distant, always penurious, and of late in turmoil-most certainly was not.

Bedmar stepped forward, noting the carefully blank face of the American priest. "Monsignor," he said, feeling that the man deserved at least that much. Mazzare had risen from parish pastor to, Bedmar estimated, ambassador from the third most powerful nation in Europe to perhaps the fourth or fifth richest. Bedmar extended his hand with its ring of office.

A test, there. Mazzare took it and kissed the ring in the proper manner, betraying the work of a far better tutor in protocol than most parish priests ever ran into.

"Your Eminence does me much honor," Mazzare said, resorting to Veneziano, the local dialect of Italian. That wasn't protocol. The meaning-yes, to meet on neutral ground. Bedmar raised his estimate of the American a notch or two. It had been high enough to begin with, of course. Few were trusted in his position that were not at least confident and competent.

"And how does monsignor find Venice?" Bedmar decided that he would confine himself to the pleasantries. Should Mazzare wish to try a more aggressive approach, he would presumably not do it in front of witnesses.

"Venice is a beautiful city, and I hope to do a great deal of business here."

Oh, so it was that way, was it? At least Bedmar hoped so, although he realized it was perhaps some American quirk that made such a blatant ploy into a mere pleasantry. They were a new folk to him.

"Business?" he asked pleasantly.

"Oh, yes," Mazzare replied, smiling gently with his two aides behind him.

A peculiar arrangement, that. A Catholic ambassador, with a Jesuit and a Protestant as his assistants.

After a moment, Mazzare broke the brief silence. "Many people have expressed an interest in doing business with us, Your Eminence. All save Seigneur le Comte d'Avaux, who gave us his back publicly."

Bedmar had wondered what the murmur had been a few moments before. He had assumed that-no, he had been distracted by the art on the walls and his musings about the situation in Flanders.

Mazzare's words finally registered fully. "Ha!" he barked, amused. Then, cursing himself-getting too damned old!-he got a grip on his momentary lapse and shut his face down while his mind worked. "What was the oily little French toad thinking, to play his hand so publicly and so soon?"

"I had expected some coldness," Mazzare said; wryly now, apparently disarmed by Bedmar's own forthrightness, "with our nations at war. This was more than I thought we might see. The gentleman from England was pleasant, though, and invited us to meet some merchant friends of his. Your own ambassador was courteous, and looked forward to talking with us-"

Bedmar had leapt to a conclusion while Mazzare talked. "Monsignor," he said, interrupting, "disregard that last. My countryman, the permanent ambassador here, Count de Rocca, is a puffed-up fool. He comes directly from Spain and will tell you what he is told to tell you. From me, on the other hand-freshly arrived from the Low Countries, where reality stands in sharp contrast to fantasy-you will get plain speaking. So let me offer my personal hand in friendship, and say that there will be straight dealing between us, as between honorable enemies. We may each of us find nothing to agree on, but it will be fairly haggled for. Like you, I am from a small town. I know what it is to see the women barter in the market-place-" a slight look of bemusement crossed the American's face at that, and Bedmar wondered briefly why "-and perhaps you do, too. Let us be, at least civil; and perhaps reach an understanding as priests, if it can be reached. There will come a time when a larger deal might be done, but let us not force the matter, no?"

Bedmar noted that Mazzare had set his face perfectly for the enlargement and the restriction of what he had said. A professional, then, or at least a gifted amateur.

"Your Eminence, I look forward to it." Mazzare nodded graciously and began to move along.

A moment of mischief filled the cardinal. "By the way," he said, bringing Mazzare back in the very act of turning away, "the young caballero with your party, he moves quickly, no?"

Mazzare's frown of confusion was mild. "Your Eminence?"

"Oh, even in Venice a young man must work a bit to find a courtesan-and such a young and pretty one, too."

The frown deepened. "Your Eminence, I hardly think this is the time or place to cast aspersions-"

"Aspersions, Monsignor? It's quite obvious, despite the woman's improper shoes." Bedmar chuckled, to show he meant no ill-will. "The Venetians may complain about that, you know. They don't mind courtesans here-celebrate them, in fact-but they do insist on the formalities."

Mazzare's face settled into a placid expression. "I thank Your Eminence, for bringing the matter to my attention. You may be assured that it will receive a thorough investigation."

"Shocked, Monsignor? And here I was believing the tales that Grantville was a whole town filled with scantily clad immoral women." Bedmar chuckled. "I am from too rural a town to give much credence to stuffy Venetian notions of proper dress, Monsignor. Lot of hypocrites, they are. But if you have the cure of the boy's soul, Monsignor, you must think on whether fornication between the unmarried is any sin at all or whether, well, boys will be boys, hey?"

It was all Bedmar could do to keep his face straight. Fortunately, he was helped by the arrival of a new party, which distracted Mazzare momentarily. The alchemist was coming along the receiving line in the company of his wife.

"Senor Stone," Bedmar beamed. "A pleasure to make your acquaintance!"

"Thank you, uh . . ." The alchemist looked slightly dazed. Doubtless fumes from some working or other. His wife stood up on tiptoe and whispered into the place where, presumably, an ear was hidden amid shaggy wolf-gray hair. "Your Eminence," Stone finished.

"I have heard that you have divined the secrets of alchemy?"

Another surprised and startled look. "Uh, no. Ah, that is, Your Eminence, alchemy is what they do in this time, and it doesn't work. Chemistry-"

Stone gave the last word a careful and exaggerated pronunciation. As it was a new word, Bedmar surmised that he got asked to repeat it a lot.

"-is what we do in the twentieth century, and it does work. I make dyes, and stains, and paints and medicines, and we may make some other things. Soon. Yes, soon."

He looked uncertainly at his wife, and at Mazzare, as if unsure what he could say and not say.

Bedmar rescued him, or at least pretended to for the sake of a jest he was now thoroughly enjoying. "Dye, eh?" he said. "A coincidence you should mention the color of things. Shoes can be dyed too, of course. It was a matter I raised with the monsignor here, some moments ago. Yes, quite a coincidence."

Mazzare's look in return was pure poison for the moment it took him to get his face under control, a chink in the armor through which Bedmar could see that Mazzare cared for his ambassadorial party. A weakness, perhaps, but one that showed he was a man with whom business could be done. As for the poisonous look, Bedmar thought a man who played the game of princes would do well to be prepared for an occasional unorthodox step in the dance. A mixed metaphor that Sanchez, who had some pretensions to poetry, would wince at.

"Your Eminence," Mazzare said after a long, awkward moment. "It appears we are holding up the receiving line, much though I would like to continue this fascinating conversation. Perhaps later?"

"Yes, perhaps later."

Chapter 17.

When the American ambassador had moved on and the lesser lights in their train had passed also, Bedmar turned to Sanchez. "Not bad, for his first time."

"Oh?" Sanchez returned from whatever internal fugue he had been pursuing to save himself from tedium.

"The American priest. There might almost be a diplomat made of him, if he survives this town." Bedmar nodded to himself. The people from the future bore watching, whatever the rest of the hierarchy might say-which was decidedly mixed-if Mazzare was any guide.

"And if he survives your attentions, Your Eminence." Sanchez grinned through his mustaches. "That business over the shoes was a trifle unnecessary, I thought."

"Oh, Sanchez," Bedmar said, "do permit a tired old man his fun."

Sanchez chuckled. "Oh, I will, if he will permit me mine. Did you see the Moorish one?"

Bedmar nodded, although with some reservation. "Looked more like an Ethiope to me."

"You know what I mean. What they all call a Moor here in the Italies that hardly ever see one."

Sanchez's eyes seemed, to Bedmar, to be getting a little dreamy. The man was incorrigible. The old Catalan goat had buried three wives that Bedmar knew about. And while he had been faithful to all of them, so far as the cardinal was aware, he had something of a notorious reputation during those periods he was unmarried. Even now, at his age!

Bedmar reminded himself, on the other hand, that it was that same vigor which made Sanchez such a useful man to have around. Not to mention a comfort, of a certain specific and necessary sort, in the event of dire necessity. Even now, somewhere in his late fifties-no one, including Sanchez, knew the precise year of his birth-only a fool or someone inexperienced in such matters challenged the Catalan lightly. Wives were but a small portion of the people Ruy Sanchez had seen lowered into graves. The chief distinction enjoyed by the wives was that Sanchez had not put them there.

Still, there were times the man annoyed Bedmar. If for no other reason than the many aches and pains from which the cardinal's body now suffered. Sanchez was but a few years younger than he, yet the Catalan still moved with the ease and grace of a man in his thirties.