“Your Eminence?” Sanchez was nudging him.
It was good that he had. In his reverie, Bedmar had turned his eyes to the marvelous coronation of the virgin that adorned the wall above and behind the doge. Thus he had not noticed that Mazzare had come, in the proper order of protocol, to the extraordinary ambassador from the Spanish Netherlands. Purely out of spite, the Venetians had declined to recall Bedmar’s last sojourn as ambassador in Venice and so put him considerably farther from the doyenne—some English coin-counter—than he truly merited. Another point on which his mere presence was helping the Americans, he realized. Any nation that defied Spain and the House of Habsburg was sure of a warm reception from Venice.
The cardinal understood the dynamics of power extremely well. The Venetians had gotten cold comfort from France since the Mantuan War and had been at near war with the Turk these hundred years past. Their best option was the United States of Europe, which was powerful enough to be a worthwhile ally against Spain and the Habsburgs where England—still more distant, always penurious, and of late in turmoil—most certainly was not.
Bedmar stepped forward, noting the carefully blank face of the American priest. “Monsignor,” he said, feeling that the man deserved at least that much. Mazzare had risen from parish pastor to, Bedmar estimated, ambassador from the third most powerful nation in Europe to perhaps the fourth or fifth richest. Bedmar extended his hand with its ring of office.
A test, there. Mazzare took it and kissed the ring in the proper manner, betraying the work of a far better tutor in protocol than most parish priests ever ran into.
“Your Eminence does me much honor,” Mazzare said, resorting to Veneziano, the local dialect of Italian. That wasn’t protocol. The meaning—yes, to meet on neutral ground. Bedmar raised his estimate of the American a notch or two. It had been high enough to begin with, of course. Few were trusted in his position that were not at least confident and competent.
“And how does monsignor find Venice?” Bedmar decided that he would confine himself to the pleasantries. Should Mazzare wish to try a more aggressive approach, he would presumably not do it in front of witnesses.
“Venice is a beautiful city, and I hope to do a great deal of business here.”
Oh, so it was that way, was it? At least Bedmar hoped so, although he realized it was perhaps some American quirk that made such a blatant ploy into a mere pleasantry. They were a new folk to him.
“Business?” he asked pleasantly.
“Oh, yes,” Mazzare replied, smiling gently with his two aides behind him.
A peculiar arrangement, that. A Catholic ambassador, with a Jesuit and a Protestant as his assistants.
After a moment, Mazzare broke the brief silence. “Many people have expressed an interest in doing business with us, Your Eminence. All save Seigneur le Comte d’Avaux, who gave us his back publicly.”
Bedmar had wondered what the murmur had been a few moments before. He had assumed that—no, he had been distracted by the art on the walls and his musings about the situation in Flanders.
Mazzare’s words finally registered fully. “Ha!” he barked, amused. Then, cursing himself—getting too damned old!—he got a grip on his momentary lapse and shut his face down while his mind worked. “What was the oily little French toad thinking, to play his hand so publicly and so soon?”
“I had expected some coldness,” Mazzare said; wryly now, apparently disarmed by Bedmar’s own forthrightness, “with our nations at war. This was more than I thought we might see. The gentleman from England was pleasant, though, and invited us to meet some merchant friends of his. Your own ambassador was courteous, and looked forward to talking with us—”
Bedmar had leapt to a conclusion while Mazzare talked. “Monsignor,” he said, interrupting, “disregard that last. My countryman, the permanent ambassador here, Count de Rocca, is a puffed-up fool. He comes directly from Spain and will tell you what he is told to tell you. From me, on the other hand—freshly arrived from the Low Countries, where reality stands in sharp contrast to fantasy—you will get plain speaking. So let me offer my personal hand in friendship, and say that there will be straight dealing between us, as between honorable enemies. We may each of us find nothing to agree on, but it will be fairly haggled for. Like you, I am from a small town. I know what it is to see the women barter in the market-place—” a slight look of bemusement crossed the American’s face at that, and Bedmar wondered briefly why “—and perhaps you do, too. Let us be, at least civil; and perhaps reach an understanding as priests, if it can be reached. There will come a time when a larger deal might be done, but let us not force the matter, no?”