Bedmar turned to glare at him. The Catalan gentiluomo’s sense of humor had irritated him for years. Why he put up with the hard-bitten old fool was a mystery to the cardinal. Probably because that same sense of humor amused him also. Most of the time.
Sanchez’s mustaches twitched a little. “It is the American ambassador, Your Eminence. He just arrived.”
The Sala di Gran Consiglio, the doge’s main council chamber, was a working debating-hall without the kind of elevated entrance that permitted guests already arrived to see who was coming in, so they had to wait. In fact, the only raised part of the room was the presiding dais at one end, where the doge was stationed with his retinue of Senators. The middle of the floor was open to allow the new arrivals to parade up to greet the doge. As they passed, Sanchez was all business.
“The priest in front, Your Eminence, is Lawrence Mazzare, the ambassador from the United States of Europe. He speaks for their President—no, he’s called the prime minister now—Michael Stearns. The fat priest with him is his curate and factotum, the Jesuit I told you of, Heinzerling. The other is Mazzare’s second in the embassy, a Protestant cleric by the name of Jones. Behind them is the alchemist Stone and his wife. The young Moor is the daughter of the doctor, Nichols; she was also betrothed to the hero of the battle at Wismar last autumn. The one named Richter, who was killed.”
Sanchez’s voice grew a little distant as he spoke of the black woman. She was definitely worth looking at, although Bedmar didn’t think she merited quite the stare that Sanchez, the old goat, was giving her.
Bedmar tried to drag his man back to the matter at hand. “I wonder how Stone will go down,” he murmured, “since everyone is expecting the purest of rational natural philosophy from these Americans.” Back home, there had been calls for the Inquisition to deal with alchemists as heretics or, at the very least, peddlers of superstition. The Inquisition, for the most part, insisted that fraud was a matter for the secular courts, although from time to time they proceeded against the more egregious examples.
“I wonder, too,” Sanchez said, his mind still on the job despite evident distraction, “although I hear stories that this Stone makes it work.”
“Really? And who is this behind, now?” That was a sight, if anything, even more remarkable than the prospect of base metal into gold. Well, not anywhere else in Venice, but here in the Gran Consiglio it was a bit much.
“These, I think, are Stone’s sons. One of them—the eldest, it would look like—is accompanied by, ah—”
“Quite,” Bedmar said. “And such a young and pretty one, too. I think we might have to be tactful about that.” One of the American boys was accompanied by a young woman. A Venetian, obviously—and just as obviously a courtesan, even if she wasn’t wearing the red shoes of her vocation and was pretending to be otherwise. Nobody else at such an event would be that young, that good-looking, and that awkward in her bearing and poise. A new courtesan, clearly, unsure of herself in high company. She wasn’t even wearing a mask—not even a half-mask. Judging from the stares she was getting, she was completely unknown to the crowd.
That might cause a bit of a scandal. Not her status, but the attempt at disguising it. Several of the younger minor notables of Venice present at the reception were accompanied by courtesans, and no one was taking any real note of it. The Serene Republic was notorious for its moral laxity. On the other hand, all the other courtesans Bedmar could see were wearing the red shoes required by custom. Sin, Venetians tolerated; attempting to rise above one’s station was another matter.
“The rest I don’t know, Your Eminence,” Sanchez was saying. He had moved behind Bedmar now and was murmuring over his shoulder. Around the room, other diplomats were being briefed in like manner. “The stocky soldier is the head of their embassy guard, I think. A Scotsman named Lennox. Until last year he was a cavalryman in the Swede’s army.”