“Just so,” said Nasi. “You, Father, are a Catholic priest and, however indirectly”—he gestured at the notes, now weighted down with a brick on the chair where they had been put out of the way—”you have the ear of the pope. Added to this, you are an up-timer and, if you will permit me the compliment, renowned as a man of conscience and integrity among the diplomats of Europe.”
“Come again? That last part?” Mazzare shook his head. “Hardly anyone outside this town knows me at all, let alone well enough to give me a character reference.”
There was genuine warmth and humor in Nasi’s laugh, for all its quietness and brevity. “No, Father Mazzare, many have heard of your reputation. For one thing, you count among your acquaintances one of the rising stars of modern diplomacy, Monsignor Mazarini, and he is, when not keeping secrets, a terrible gossip. Well, not a ‘gossip’ exactly—nothing that man says is uncalculated. For another thing, surely you cannot think you have escaped the notice of the spies that infest this town?”
“Place is thick with ’em,” Mike added. Though he didn’t seem terribly aggrieved at the thought.
“Oh, quite,” said Nasi, smiling widely. “It is all I can do not to have a guidebook printed so as to be sure that they get everything. Most helpful, in the matter of sending clear messages to our adversaries.”
Mazzare gave a little shudder at the kind of mind that would welcome and take advantage of pervasive espionage. For all his affable urbanity, Don Francisco was a deeply devious man. He was, after all, from the city that gave the world the term “Byzantine” in the first place.
“Why would they be interested in me?” he asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“They pay attention to all the churches in this town,” Nasi answered. “Also attracting them was the fact that Monsignor Mazarini paid you close attention and in his own person carried your first message to Rome. A message, I might add, that it is widely known was read by either the pope or one of his closest advisers. Hardly the sort of thing that characterizes ‘a simple parish priest.’ ”
Mike snorted. “Hardly. Come on, Larry, cut it out.” He gave Mazzare a hard and level gaze. “You know perfectly well that you’re in a special position in this world. And, by now, probably the most famous ‘simple priest’ since a guy named Martin Luther.” He pointed a finger at the thick stack of paper on the chair. “Do you really think the pope asks every ‘simple parish priest’ to send him a tome on theology?”
Mazzare didn’t try to meet the gaze. Mike was right, and he knew it. He’d known it since the day he decided to ask Mazarini to take those first books to Rome.
For the first time, be began seriously considering the matter. Where would he do more good?
Hesitations came first. “I don’t know anything about Venice, especially not in this day and age. And what I know about diplomacy and negotiations you could . . .” Metaphor failed him. “It’s not very much. Nothing, come right to it.”
Nasi waved those objections aside. “Briefings. Training. Weeks of it. We do not propose to send you on the morrow. Then, when you reach Venice, there will be a staff from the Abrabanel and Nasi holdings in the city to advise you and to handle the details of negotiations. Finally, Father Heinzerling here has some experience as a diplomatic aide.”
“Gus?” Mazzare looked sharply at his curate. “Did you have a hand in this, this—?”
Not a muscle moved in Heinzerling’s face. “Don Nasi inquired, and I informed him that there would be no difficulty in obtaining the services of a curate or two during any time we spent away. He did not say for how long, where, or on what particular business.”
The trouble with Gus, Mazzare thought as he parsed that, was that it was desperately easy to assume that he was plain and straightforward all the time, rather than just most of it. The man could be damnably devious when he put his mind to it, and his loyalty to his parish priest would probably cause him to. The trouble was that his idea of Mazzare’s best interests was decidedly seventeenth century. Heinzerling was bound and determined that Larry Mazzare would become—bare minimum—a bishop. In this day and age, that almost required political prominence.