“Hush, you Catalan dullard. Where such as you see only problems, I see only solutions.”
Bedmar paused a moment, assessing Sanchez, assessing what little he had yet gleaned of American manners. A foolish scheme, of course—hardly worth calling a scheme at all. But then, there was hardly anything for it but foolish schemes, with the ridiculous mission he had.
A decision. “Yes, Sanchez, pursue your Moor, your Ethiope, your whatever. It may prove helpful.”
Sanchez’s eyes narrowed. “Prince of the Church or not, Your Eminence, you will not command me to . . .”
Bedmar waited until Sanchez trailed off. “Now, Sanchez, let us not leap to conclusions. We have done much together, you and I, but have I ever asked you to betray the confidence of a lady? Even a Morisco?”
“And how do you know she is not a Christian?” Sanchez was—no, not joking at all. Interesting. The man was usually levity itself, but now he seemed to be on the edge of a frosty pique.
Bedmar sighed. “Be quick, Sanchez. I will tear you away from her soon enough tonight, whatever she may be—and however receptive. My feet still hurt, my back aches, every Venetian here will cut me as if his life depended on it and no one else has any cause to speak with me.”
“As you wish, Your Eminence.” Sanchez stroked his mustachios and moved off. The cardinal watched him go for a moment.
Irritating, sometimes, truly irritating. How did a man of his years still manage to swagger?
* * *
Buckley stamped his feet. It might be spring in Venice, but that didn’t mean the warm sunshine of the afternoons stayed on the Piazza San Marco past sundown. It was probably all right if you were moving about, but Joe had picked a shady spot under the Imbroglio to wait for the evening’s action.
Well, some of that had been and gone, of course. He hadn’t expected to be let in, and had really only tried to insinuate himself for the sheer hell of declaiming, in a loud voice, “Do you know who I am?”
The ducal retainers at the door—bouncers, in any other context—had given him their best sneers and inquired, oh-so-politely, who exactly he was? He had to give them credit for that. He’d told them, in a rather more reasonable tone of voice, and they in their turn had told him that his name wasn’t down and he wasn’t coming in. Or words to that effect: the bouncer’s litany was a little different in seventeenth-century Venice.
As far as he could tell, the last of the diplomatic parties had gone in. He’d only stayed out front to check their various arrivals. Shortly, once the evening’s festivities settled in, he’d mosey on around the corner to find what, grand though it might be compared to the ordinary run of doors in this town, must be there to serve the doge’s palace as a tradesman’s entrance. He’d find the back door in to the story he needed. He just, he figured, had to give it a few minutes.
He spent those few minutes wandering around the piazza, taking in the sights. They were worth taking in, actually. Centuries in the future, in another universe, this was the place the tourists always mobbed when they came to Venice. At least, that’s what Joe had read in the travel guide to Venice he’d gotten his hands on—he’d never been any farther outside the United States than a trip to Montreal, himself, back before the Ring of Fire.
He didn’t spend much time looking at the famous cathedral, the Basilica di San Marco. Buckley wasn’t that taken by any kind of old cathedral, especially not one that was as much of an hodgepodge as the Basilica. His tastes in architecture were pretty much like his tastes in writing—Buckley was a newspaperman, not a pretentious literary author. The one time he’d tried to read a novel by William Faulkner—twenty pages’ worth—he’d come away convinced that the entire literary establishment were a bunch of lunatics. Worst prose he’d ever seen.
The Campanile was more to his taste. The ancient lighthouse was the tallest structure in the city, and its clean and simple lines appealed to Buckley. If he got a chance, sometime over the summer, he’d see if he could finagle his way into it. The climb would be strenuous, but Buckley was in decent shape and the view from the top of the lighthouse just had to be spectacular.