Chapter 33
The funeral that took place the next day was wholly lacking in Venetian pomp, but drew a ceremonial all of its own. The arrangements had been simple enough; Gus had dealt with it. It had turned out to be easy to persuade the nearest church to let them hold the service, and a grave was to be had for ready money. Given the state of the corpse, no one even proposed employing the services of a mortician. The Marines, sharing Gus’ own grim attitude, had taken care of wrapping the body. The casket, of course, was closed.
Mazzare had not even the beginnings of a notion what religion Buckley had had, if any, and Sharon hadn’t known either despite their being at college together. So it was a requiem mass, by default, since there would have been complications at the very least had Jones, as the only Protestant minister in town, done the service in his own native liturgy.
He had expected a quiet affair, with just the staff and the ambassadorial party turning out.
Not a bit of it. Mazzare had stepped out of the sacristy, accompanied by a small squadron of Venetian altar boys, to see a church packed wall to wall. In the front pews, the embassy party minus the corporal’s guard they’d left behind. Behind them, Mazzare recognized several Venetian dignitaries. None of them of the first rank, and the highest of them would need to puff himself out to make the second rank, but nothing happened by accident in this town. Someone—likely several someones, some number between one and Ten—was sending a message of support.
Mazzare was not really surprised. Outside, he’d been told by Gus, a small mob from the Arsenal had gathered for the funeral also. Joe Buckley’s articles had been passed around the Arsenal too, in special editions printed by the Venetian Committee of Correspondence. For whatever reason—always hard to know with that mysterious body—the Council of Ten had chosen to turn a blind eye both to Buckley’s activities as well as the propaganda work of the city’s small and oft-derided Committee.
Heinzerling himself thought it was because the Council of Ten saw Buckley and his popularity in the Arsenal as an asset to Venice. True, the Venetian elite itself had often been the target of Buckley’s muckraking. Buckley had had the touch, however unpolished he might have been, and the Venetian masses had especially enjoyed one article he’d written on the Council of Ten, which he or some wit of an editor had entitled “A Conspiracy of Harlots.”
But Venice had not survived for so many centuries in Europe—a republic among monarchies for a thousand years—because its upper crust was given to fits of pique. The real danger they faced was not rebellion on the part of the city’s masses, it was foreign intervention. More than once, Venice’s powers had used the Arsenalotti to drive out an alien presence which, for one reason or another, the Council of Ten had not wanted to confront directly.
Mazzare wondered if such a maneuver was being undertaken again. And who would be the target?
The Spanish? Maybe . . .
But, if so, Sanchez seemed determined to be the joker in the deck. He’d turned out for the funeral also, and in full hidalgo formal attire. A message from his master, or just here because of Sharon?
Following the service, Buckley went by boat from the church to his grave, accompanied by a fleet of, not mourners exactly, but people who wanted to be seen to be mourners. It seemed a little unreal to Mazzare as he spoke the words and watched the crowd gather. He had visions of political funerals in South Africa and Northern Ireland, and stumbled over the words of committal as visions of riot crossed his mind.
But the funeral was wholly lacking in drama as well. The gravediggers stepped forward on cue as the mourners began to file out of the graveyard. Mazzare took off his stole, and looked to the gray sky that threatened rain but had not yet delivered.
“Larry?” Jones interrupted the reverie that Mazzare always fell into after funerals. “There’s a message from Benjamin.”