Nasi had, but Mazzare let Mazarini go on, since doubtless he meant to pass on some other information.

"The doge is merely the mouthpiece of the Republic. Messer Erizzo is, perhaps, more effective than most such. He seems to have the Senate firmly in hand for all that he is no Foscari reborn. But he must still respect the formalities of the thing. My mission, you see, is a matter of etiquette and protocol. His Holiness sees the dignities of cardinals as an issue of the highest importance."

Mazzare nodded understanding. There was a joke about it, he had heard, that the three bees of the Barberini coat of arms had once been horseflies, a joke prompted by the numbers of Barberini and Barberini placemen that were now in Rome, taking their share of the Church's revenue. There were no less than three cardinals Barberini, and the pope himself was another; he was yet to have the famous repentance of his nepotism. Between the current situation and that repentance in the old timeline was a near war over a failure to show the proper respect and to employ the correct etiquette in dealing with one of the Barberini cardinals. Part of that etiquette was the new title of "Eminence" for all cardinals, and their rank in protocol as princes. Both were Barberini innovations under Urban VIII, and part of Mazzare's briefing had been about Venice's refusal to acknowledge either.

"Venice," said Mazarini, "is-as it always has been-unwilling to knock its head on the floor at Rome's bidding. This is a city that has laughed off Interdicts in its time. On the other hand, Venice wants Rome's support in the matter of Cyprus. Let the pope declare in favor of Venice, the doge has said, and the pope may have his cardinals addressed however he pleases. That may affect you, incidentally."

"How does that affect me?" Mazzare asked.

"Because, Monsignor, Cyprus is part of the mercantile party's holdings at sea. The sway of the island represents a powerful symbol for the merchants. With Cyprus in Venetian hands, and the doge of The Most Serene Republic able to number 'King of Cyprus' among his titles, the merchant party can maintain their claim that the Terrafirma is of less importance than the seagoing trade."

"And so we deduce that those merchants are strong enough in Venice to procure that the doge defies the pope's own nuncio extraordinary?"

"Just so," said Mazarini. "Quod erat demonstrandum."

"Ah," Mazzare smiled. "You have picked up some of our scientific jargon as well-"

He stopped. He had been about to turn the talk to the scientific mission Tom Stone was leading, as a way to turn the conversation away from potentially dangerous topics with some mild and harmless bragging, but he could feel the grin even through the mask.

"Monsignor," Mazarini said, his tone deeply and comically reproachful, "the scientific jargon is ours, not yours. I spent some hours in that wonderful library at Grantville. I found a number of interesting biographies in there and I see that two of the most famous natural philosophers of the twentieth century were born in this one."

Mazzare realized, watching those eyes twinkle through the eyeholes of the mask, that he must have let his bafflement show.

"Newton, the Englishman, and our very own Galileo Galilei," Mazarini said.

Mazzare laughed, rueful. "Of course. And Germany's Leibniz is from this time as well, and many give some of Newton's credit to him. And Father Descartes, as well."

"Just so. But please, Monsignor, let me not keep you, for I suspect that Messer il Doge will want to speak with you, as tete-a-tete as may be permitted him, before this function is over. I should be gone by then. Monsignor, if I may, I shall visit with you at the embassy before long."

"That would be a genuine pleasure," Mazzare said, meaning it.

"Seeya," Mazarini said, and vanished into the plumaged crowd.

It was a second or two before Mazzare realized that the parting word had been spoken in a West Virginia accent, and a fair imitation of Harry Lefferts at that.

He kept the surprise off his face, he hoped. He took a quiet moment, then, standing alone in the crowd and listening to the faint strains of the musicians at the other side of the room playing something with a lot of strings in it; Mazzare was ill-equipped to recognize it. He tried to focus on the memory exercises to match names to faces in their proper pairings. Then the flow started up again, no important business to be done but introductions being made and pleasantries offered and returned in their turn. It was perhaps another fifteen minutes before the flow of introductions dried up again.

Jones, who had been at his elbow throughout, took advantage of the lull. "What was all that about?"

Mazzare chose to misinterpret the question. "I believe the last fellow was a factor for the Foscari."

"Larry." The tone was reproach enough.

"Didn't you recognize him? Don't say it, though, he's not supposed to be here."

"Oh. Someone we met back when?" Jones was looking around, apparently trying to see if Mazarini was still present.

"Back when, yes," said Mazzare, resisting his own urge to rubberneck. "Gus mentioned that he was in town earlier."

"Sure. Not a popular man, in Venice. Got some nerve, showing his face in here. Or not, as it happens."

"Got some nerve, period," Mazzare agreed.

"What's he doing it for, anyway? If someone recognizes him, he's in big trouble. Blows whatever chance he's got of getting on the doge's good side." Jones had finally stopped looking around, and took a sip of his wine. Which was a full glass, and not appreciably lowered by the sip, Mazzare noted with a mixture of silent relief and self-admonition for not having confidence in his old friend.

"His chances were slim and none anyway," Mazzare said. "But if there's one thing that man is down in the history books as liking, it's a touch of the theatrical."

Jones simply chuckled, and then: "Eyes front, Monsignor."

The doge was approaching, much in the manner of a ship under full sail in his robes-although, to American eyes, there was something faintly comical about the ducal cap. It resembled nothing so much as a smurf's hat.

The doge was flanked and trailed, as everywhere, by a small retinue of Venetian nobility. Not so much an honor guard as a prisoner's escort, the Venetian constitution being what it was.

There was a famous piece of architecture in Venice-Mazzare had read about it once in a travel guide-which tradition said was a gallows to hang misbehaving doges from. The office was a strange one, so hemmed about with checks and balances and separations of power that Venice appeared to be governed in spite of the doge, not because of him. In practice, the position carried a lot of influence that made up for the near total lack of power, an influence that the Venetians thought worth having and foreign diplomats had to cultivate. And, Mazzare thought, recalling their first formal meeting earlier that day, had to cultivate after climbing four flights of the Scala D'Oro to get to his receiving room.

It was a classic Venetian trick, that. Classical, including the sense of bygone, greater days. The times when the Venetians were genuinely a power in the Mediterranean rather than just a major player among several were long past. Every year, still, the doge symbolically married the sea. But the joke about him being cuckolded by the Turk was almost a century old by now.

"Monsignor," the doge said.

"Your Grace," Mazzare replied, making the formal bow. Not being Venetian, he had no right to address him as plain old Messer il Doge, without salutation. And in these years of declining power and waning influence, of shortened profits and rising costs, the Venetians clung to every little artifice of power and petty trick of haughtiness they could. Method acting in reverse, you might call it. They acted like haughty patricians granting audience to unlettered barbarians, in the hope-fond hope, really-that their audience would come to believe in the reality of it.

Especially, Mazzare thought, after that four-story stair climb.

"It will, we are sure, be a pleasure to receive your formal embassy. The Gran Consiglio meets in three days' time. Doubtless one of our secretaries will deliver your invitation tomorrow. We look forward to increase in trade and friendship with all who would truly be our friends."

Mazzare resisted an impulse to add warm praise for sunlight, motherhood and apple pie, or whatever dessert the Venetians favored. Doge Erizzo, it seemed, spouted meaningless hot air like a hairdryer, at least in public. The meeting earlier had consisted largely of a similar speech. Mazzare looked past the doge at the halo of attendants around; he could put names to some of the faces, but not all, and they seemed to be arrayed to give truth to the polite fiction that the doge was first among these equals.

Francisco Nasi had told him not to trouble himself about what stood behind the doge, though. He was to deal with the doge as if he were really the Renaissance prince he assumed the styles and airs of, and further to assume that every senator he met was one of the Ten. Every single one, bar a few misfits, reported to at least one of them.

Mazzare satisfied himself that he could not in fact pick out any obvious members of Venice's shadowy ruling council-no tattoos on foreheads, alas-and reflected on Nasi's advice. The Ten were the real government of Venice, when they could agree. Certainly there was not one item of Senate business that that anonymous, unrecorded body would not have carved up in detail before the Senate met to vote on it, with the result that every vote of the Senate was nearly unanimous. There would always be three or four dissenting votes, of course. Venice, as everywhere, had its leavening of misfits and the occasional downright lunatic among its governing classes. The Ten was one of the many compromises and anomalies by which the Most Serene Republic of Venice actually worked. It was an oligarchy, true enough, but one which allowed for democratic decision-making among the oligarchs themselves.

The doge might even be one of the Ten himself. Since the Ten was not officially part of the Venetian constitution, there was room for more than a modicum of doubt about who was saying what in its councils.

But, as Nasi had said, from the outside at least, the doge was a prince. Sometimes, it paid to focus on the illusion and ignore the reality. Nasi had then proceeded, with malice aforethought, to use words and phrases like interface and interaction metaphor. Mazzare was sure that Nasi made those things up just to enliven dull briefings, after having been mightily amused by twentieth-century management-speak as recorded in the few MBA texts Grantville had had. The man's sense of humor was oblique and bizarre. Both Jones and Mazzare had laughed about his account of the ducal promises that governed the doge's role in Venice's government. The one about his being obliged to buy five ducks for every adult male patrician in the city as a New Year's present had especially entertained them.

At the time, Mazzare and Jones had assumed the story was one of Nasi's embroideries-until they'd arrived in Venice and discovered that it was actually true.

The pleasantries concluded, with no mention of ducks for good or ill, the doge moved away.

"We're not in Kansas any more," Jones murmured.

Mazzare smiled, and looked around. That left only-but no, the entire French party were visibly and pointedly giving Mazzare their backs.

The rest of the soiree passed quietly.

For Mazzare, at least.