"Hey, folks, ease up. Let's all ease up here. Mister Marcoli-"

He rose from the table and leaned over, extending his hand. "We've never met. I'm Tom Stone, Frank's father. We're in-laws. Please to meetcha."

Out of reflex, Marcoli shook his hand. That done, Stoner pressed on with his mission of peace.

"Look, Mr. Marcoli, this is an old problem and one I had to solve, oh, years ago now."

Both Marcoli and Massimo perked up. "There is an American solution?" demanded Massimo.

How to answer that?

"Uh, yeah. Well. One of many. You understand-ah-freedom and liberty also means what you might call variety. So to speak."

"Please. Go on!"

"Right. Well, in our old commune we, ah, had a similar sort of problem. Our own principles clashing, you know, with the uptight notions-well, never mind. The point is, we founded our own church. Except it wasn't really a church. Certainly had no connection to the state. Heh. And whenever one of our couples wanted to get away from the usual-"

Best to skip over that. Communal sex would probably not play well with a man who could burst through a door on a crutch.

"Anyway, wanted to get married, let's say, we'd have our own ceremony."

Massimo pounded his fist softly on the table. "Yes," he said, almost hissing the word. "Of course! Hurl our defiance in the face of the oppressor."

"Uh, yeah. Sorta like that. In our case, it was more like smoke our defiance-"

"Dad!"

"Hey, Frank, take it easy, I'm just-never mind. Anyway, Mister Marcoli, with your approval, we could just do it again right now. Give Frank and your daughter a real wedding." He waved his hand. "They just did that other, in that Sistine Chapel place, to slide one over on the enemy."

He hoped they could also just slide over the issue of consummating the wedding. Seeing as how that had already happened. Many, many, many, many times, judging from the fact that no one had seen Frank and Giovanna outside of their bedroom for more than an hour at a stretch these past couple of days.

Marcoli eyed him. "Si? You can do this?"

"Oh, sure. I was the ordained minister. Still got my card." He began reaching for his wallet. "Universal Church of Life in . . . can't remember the rest of it, that's odd."

"Dad!"

"Ease up, willya? You get my age, your memory starts to go a little. Oh, well. Never mind the card. Just take my word for it, Mister Marcoli. I can marry the kids right here and now and we thumb our nose at the establishment. To do it full bore, of course, we'd need a hookah and some-"

"Dad!"

"Jeez, are you anal today, or what? Okay, forget the hookah. We're not people to get fixated on the trappings, are we?"

"Certainly not," said Massimo firmly. "Superb! The contradiction resolved."

"Yes!" agreed Marcoli, lunging to his feet. Somehow he managed it even without the crutch. A one-legged lunge. "Where do we stand?"

"Uh, well. You don't. Everybody sits in a circle. Cross-legged."

That got two very cross-eyed looks.

"Hey, relax. It won't take long. Since we're passing on the hookah. Most of it is just taken up by saying om."

Really cross-eyed looks.

"It's an acronym." Now he was getting cross-eyed looks from his kids. "I swear, it is. Stands for Omnipersonal Munificence."

"A superb slogan," proclaimed Massimo.

As everyone moved around to take their places, Frank took the occasion to murmur into his father's ear. "Smooth move, Dad. Thanks."

Tom Stone basked in filial approval. "Your old man's no dummy. Besides, this is a piece of cake. I made LSD in the sixties, remember?"

Epilogue:

July, 1634

Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,

And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:

And straight was a path of gold for him,

And the need of a world of men for me.

The mountain's rim

"There might be a scar, Michel, it's impossible to tell yet." Antoine Delerue finished cleaning off his hands. "Won't be a bad one, though, just a short hairline. Not enough to make your description obvious. It's the mark on your hand that'll be problem there."

Ducos scowled down at his right hand. The Buckley creature had ripped and torn it badly, leaving a large and distinctive scar. But, there was nothing to be done about that now. He rose and went to the port rail, Delerue following. The coast of Italy was now barely visible behind them.

Another of Ducos' Huguenot confederates came to join them. Guillaume Locquifier, that was. "They'll never catch us now."

Ducos nodded.

"Too bad about the pope. Most of the project succeeded quite well."

Ducos nodded.

"He's the Antichrist, so I suppose we should not be surprised to have failed the first time." Locquifier scowled. "Curse those American bastards. Do you want-"

Ducos waved his hand impatiently. "Don't be stupid, Guillaume. Do you propose to curse every soldier who stands against us? Divert ourselves at each instant in order to punish lackeys?"