“England too, on that basis.”
“True,” Mazzare said. “Fielding’s as smooth and two-faced a limey as ever I met.”
“Prejudice, Larry?” Jones clucked his tongue slyly.
“No, I lived there, remember. I’m not suggesting he’s smooth and two-faced because he’s a limey—and they found that term funny, by the way. No, as I was saying, he’s as smooth and two-faced as they come, but if he’s a schemer then he’s a schemer who’s doing nicely, I hear, out of us being in Venice. And even if he wasn’t, Hider would be sitting on him, and Hider right here has a lot more clout than Charles Stuart at the other end of Europe. So, you’re right, not the English. The Danes? We’ve had hardly a peep out of them here, and I doubt they care what happens all the way over this side of Europe. No, they’ve got more parochial concerns.”
“The Austrians?” Jones suggested. “Come to that, Wallenstein? Yeah, sure, he’s supposed to be an ally now, but with that man . . .”
“Doubt either. Wallenstein’s hardly on the radar. What are we doing in Venice to annoy him that even comes close to matching his need to rely on us where he lives? Undercutting his interest in the copper market? Sure, he sent off a nasty letter or two, but that’s piddly stuff. As for the Austrians, the Empire’s pretty much resigned to us cocking a snook at them.”
“Really?” Jones raised his eyebrows.
“I’m sure of it. All the bloviating they’ve been doing has been pretty much for form’s sake. They’ve had to put up with the Venetians for so long they don’t seem to care any more, and we’re not likely to do them any harm here that we’re not doing bigger and better closer to home. Besides, the Spanish Habsburgs regard this as their theater, not for their cousins to dabble in.”
“Stipulated. For the moment. That leaves us with France and Spain proper, then, and—who else?”
“Everyone Buckley annoyed,” Mazzare said, with a sigh.
“That’s me on the list of suspects, then,” Jones said. “You too, actually.”
“Right. But the first people he annoyed were the French and the last were, at a guess, the Turks.”
“Turks?”
“That was going to be his next piece, as far as Benjamin could tell, and I found some notes to that effect in his room. He’d been making himself a nuisance around Bey Koprulu’s staff. I understand he’d been told his presence wasn’t wanted and would be, ah, reduced if it was detected again.”
Jones nodded. “Should have remembered the reports. I do recall reading that a couple of days ago.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence, watching the sights and sounds of Venice slide by. It was, Mazzare thought, living proof that there was such a thing as too beautiful. The palazzi were carefully constructed to be light and airy in their facades, of properly balanced proportion and perfectly tasteful adornment. Even the lack of maintenance was part of the charm. Still and all, he couldn’t help feeling that a little more austerity would improve the place no end, or at least let some of the poorer neighborhoods front onto the canal.
As they turned onto the narrow canal that led to the embassy, a maneuver that always put Mazzare in mind of sailing into a cave-mouth, they saw an unfamiliar boat tied up in front, slightly ornate despite Venice’s ferocious sumptuary laws that insisted on the same kind of gondola for everyone.
“Visitor, then,” Jones said as they disembarked and paid the gondolier. He nodded at the new boat. “Someone important, from the looks.”
“Wonder who?” Mazzare mused.
* * *
Mazarini met them inside the door, chatting with Sharon Nichols. He must have been practically standing sentry. “Your Excellency,” he said, in very solemn tone of voice, “I have a letter for you here. It’s from the Holy Father.”
Mazzare took the proffered note. It was a very fancy looking thing. He could only stare at the missive, for some moments, while his mind raced over the possible contents. He had a sense that the blood had drained from his face.
What was most likely, he thought, was that the pope had decided to firmly and decisively reject Mazzare’s views on the Church’s proper theological and historical perspective and future course. If so, Larry Mazzare would finally find himself in that place he had most wanted to avoid since the Ring of Fire. The place where Martin Luther had once stood—almost half a millennium back, in the world Mazzare had come from, but not much more than a century in this one.