“Marius?” he called out, and saw Marius nod. Frank flicked it up, wincing a bit as he had to hit the thing a lot harder because it had almost no bounce. He was going to have a bruise in the morning. He got under it as it came back down and nodded it over to the Venetian.
Who chest-trapped it like a pro, and took it on the drop for a shot that would have gone clear to the back of the net, but—
It was a cabbage, after all. It exploded in a shower of healthful greens. The heart shot out at about Mach three and landed in the hearth to a shower of sparks and curses from the cooks.
Then, salvation!
Giovanna’s father rose to his feet, bellowing praise, and proceeded to slap Marius on the back. Gerry and Ron went into full-on goal-celebration mode, heaving their doublets up over their faces and waving like loons.
Billy was throwing up now. Whether that was because he had actually laughed himself sick or because he’d just seen his plan to pollute Italy with baseball explode in a shower of cabbage leaves, Frank didn’t know. The Italians were all cheering Marius, who was grinning like he’d scored the winner.
Which, in a sense, he had. Definitely, Frank thought, promising territory for three missionaries of the Beautiful Game.
Better yet, Giovanna was hauling her father over and making a proper introduction. Antonio Marcoli still looked far more intense than Frank would ever be comfortable with, but the man was smiling and extending his hand. Best of all, Giovanna’s smile was wider than he’d ever seen it and the dimples were on Full Charm Display.
Mentally, Frank put away the vial of poison and the suicide dagger. All was well with the world!
* * *
Alas, he should have known.
No sooner did Antonio Marcoli take his hand than he drew Frank close. Then, whispered into his ear.
The whisper even sounded conspiratorial.
“Tomorrow. At night. Giovanna will bring you. Full meeting of the Committee. We must conspire to rescue Galileo.”
Chapter 14
Slipping away from the embassy the next day to get a boat to Murano was simplicity itself. Ron had suggested holding the meeting with Giovanna’s father in the afternoon, so they could with all honesty tell Dad and Magda that they were going to see the sights and would be back by dark.
Giovanna insisted on not letting them row the boat for her. Watching the more-or-less effortless way in which she’d handled the little craft, Frank was inclined to agree it was a good idea that she had. Apart from some kayaking the one time their dad had sent them off to summer camp, none of the Stone boys could have handled the boat the way she did.
Besides, sitting in the stern and observing Giovanna in action was a sheer delight for Frank. The girl might be on the small side—by twentieth-century American standards, if not seventeenth-century Italian ones—but her lush figure was underlain by plenty of muscle. It was all Frank could do not to ogle her outright.
The journey to Murano didn’t take much time, and half of that was negotiating the winding little canals and the heavy traffic that Venice always had on its waterways in the daytime. The taverna was on the same model as the one that was in the basement of the embassy: it was in the back of the lower story of a great house. But this one was a dedicated taverna, rather than part of a huge kitchen. It didn’t seem to be a public establishment, though. From what Frank could tell, it was more in the way of a private club for the inhabitants of the building.
It was an odd sort of arrangement, to American eyes, even eyes that had grown accustomed to seventeenth-century central Germany. The big building fronting the canal was not a palace for an embassy but a considerably more dilapidated structure. Most of it seemed to be taken up by artisans’ shops below and their associated living quarters on the upper floors. The population density was . . . Venetian.
Giovanna’s father, Frank had learned, was a metalworker by trade. Which, in Venice, meant something more like a jeweler than a blacksmith. Apparently, he’d traveled to Thuringia not long after the Ring of Fire in order to improve his skills with up-time techniques, leaving his children in the care of his relatives since his own wife had died in the plague. Antonio had returned with a burning enthusiasm for up-time ideology as well as up-time metalworking techniques. In fact, from what Frank could tell, he seemed to be the perfect illustration of the old saw about the zeal of converts. More Catholic than the pope—or, in this case, more American than the Americans.