Bedmar noted that Mazzare had set his face perfectly for the enlargement and the restriction of what he had said. A professional, then, or at least a gifted amateur.
“Your Eminence, I look forward to it.” Mazzare nodded graciously and began to move along.
A moment of mischief filled the cardinal. “By the way,” he said, bringing Mazzare back in the very act of turning away, “the young caballero with your party, he moves quickly, no?”
Mazzare’s frown of confusion was mild. “Your Eminence?”
“Oh, even in Venice a young man must work a bit to find a courtesan—and such a young and pretty one, too.”
The frown deepened. “Your Eminence, I hardly think this is the time or place to cast aspersions—”
“Aspersions, Monsignor? It’s quite obvious, despite the woman’s improper shoes.” Bedmar chuckled, to show he meant no ill-will. “The Venetians may complain about that, you know. They don’t mind courtesans here—celebrate them, in fact—but they do insist on the formalities.”
Mazzare’s face settled into a placid expression. “I thank Your Eminence, for bringing the matter to my attention. You may be assured that it will receive a thorough investigation.”
“Shocked, Monsignor? And here I was believing the tales that Grantville was a whole town filled with scantily clad immoral women.” Bedmar chuckled. “I am from too rural a town to give much credence to stuffy Venetian notions of proper dress, Monsignor. Lot of hypocrites, they are. But if you have the cure of the boy’s soul, Monsignor, you must think on whether fornication between the unmarried is any sin at all or whether, well, boys will be boys, hey?”
It was all Bedmar could do to keep his face straight. Fortunately, he was helped by the arrival of a new party, which distracted Mazzare momentarily. The alchemist was coming along the receiving line in the company of his wife.
“Señor Stone,” Bedmar beamed. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance!”
“Thank you, uh . . .” The alchemist looked slightly dazed. Doubtless fumes from some working or other. His wife stood up on tiptoe and whispered into the place where, presumably, an ear was hidden amid shaggy wolf-gray hair. “Your Eminence,” Stone finished.
“I have heard that you have divined the secrets of alchemy?”
Another surprised and startled look. “Uh, no. Ah, that is, Your Eminence, alchemy is what they do in this time, and it doesn’t work. Chemistry—”
Stone gave the last word a careful and exaggerated pronunciation. As it was a new word, Bedmar surmised that he got asked to repeat it a lot.
“—is what we do in the twentieth century, and it does work. I make dyes, and stains, and paints and medicines, and we may make some other things. Soon. Yes, soon.”
He looked uncertainly at his wife, and at Mazzare, as if unsure what he could say and not say.
Bedmar rescued him, or at least pretended to for the sake of a jest he was now thoroughly enjoying. “Dye, eh?” he said. “A coincidence you should mention the color of things. Shoes can be dyed too, of course. It was a matter I raised with the monsignor here, some moments ago. Yes, quite a coincidence.”
Mazzare’s look in return was pure poison for the moment it took him to get his face under control, a chink in the armor through which Bedmar could see that Mazzare cared for his ambassadorial party. A weakness, perhaps, but one that showed he was a man with whom business could be done. As for the poisonous look, Bedmar thought a man who played the game of princes would do well to be prepared for an occasional unorthodox step in the dance. A mixed metaphor that Sanchez, who had some pretensions to poetry, would wince at.
“Your Eminence,” Mazzare said after a long, awkward moment. “It appears we are holding up the receiving line, much though I would like to continue this fascinating conversation. Perhaps later?”
“Yes, perhaps later.”