That was from the Venetian point of view, of course. From Bedmar’s own perspective, it had been a great adventure in the service of his country, widening the empire and taking back some of what the Venetians had leeched from Spain one way or another over the years. Their defiance, captiousness, decadence, whoring and irreligion were a byword across Europe, and there were better uses for the wealth and strategic position of the great city.
But . . . it had ended in humiliation. For some reason these decadent, coin-counting Italians did not want a change of regime at the hands of the greatest power in Europe. The Venetians had caught every one of Bedmar’s Venetian partisans. Labeled them “traitors,” no less; then, hung them after breaking their legs in the time-honored Venetian tradition. There had been ugly scenes with mobs of Arsenalotti on the day Bedmar had left the Most Serene Republic in a not-very-serene hurry.
A week after that scramble of a day, though, a couple of Imperial ambassadors had been thrown out of a window in the now-famous “defenestration of Prague.” Bohemia had risen in revolt under a Protestant king and everyone had forgotten about Italy and what Bedmar had done in Venice—until de Nevers and his claim to Mantua gave everyone another pretext for mayhem in the interest of extending influence in the Italies. That had only just finished when the Americans turned up, but things had now settled down over the border in Mantua. The troops had gone elsewhere, as well, and Italy looked like a relatively safe place for the first time in fifteen years.
Which meant that it wanted nothing but that someone should turn out singly and severally to make trouble. Bedmar wasn’t objecting, really. Winter in Flanders was cold and ugly on his old bones; Venice was a good place to be until summer. In the meantime, he would achieve all he could—which was probably nothing. No one trusted him in this town, and never would. He would simply dump a good deal of money in Venice, report failure, and leave with the coming winter chill.
The cardinal thought that old Count Gondomar, back when he was still alive and Spain’s ambassador to England, had been righter than he knew when he wrote his famous complaint before the war. He had written of the energy of the newly rising nations, especially the England whose ruin he had conspicuously failed to bring about, and of the waxing commercial power of the Dutch. By contrast, he had said, Spain was buying doubtful loyalties with the better part of every New World treasure fleet.
Bedmar had agreed with him but, alas, the king of Spain had not. Philip IV and his chief minister the Count-Duke of Olivares had opted for a different solution: war. If Spain was losing the peace, why, then, the truce was about to expire. Spain was apparently to rediscover her glory at the end of a pike.
The cardinal had been skeptical at the time, and the ensuing fifteen years of what future historians were said to call “the Thirty Years’ War” had borne him out. The war had simply continued Spain’s slide from the top of the pile, and added a mountain of dead and put half of Europe into near-anarchy to compound everyone’s problems.
And here, once again, Bedmar was sent to disburse another portion of the last treasure fleet on loyalties that were not even strong enough to be called doubtful. The chances were good that all Bedmar would do would be to fund a few petty enemies.
He sighed. Spain would gain nothing here except perhaps a close look at a few more Americans than had been seen outside their new United States to date. And even that was late. The Venetians might be able to run a State Inquisition able to shut down a well-funded fifth column run by a professional spymaster, but they didn’t seem to be able to make a convivial drinks reception run on time. At that, Bedmar couldn’t fault their sense of priorities.
The majordomo was announcing something. “Did you hear that, Sanchez?” he asked, nudging his gentiluomo.
“Yes, Your Eminence,” said Sanchez.