He stopped. He had been about to turn the talk to the scientific mission Tom Stone was leading, as a way to turn the conversation away from potentially dangerous topics with some mild and harmless bragging, but he could feel the grin even through the mask.
“Monsignor,” Mazarini said, his tone deeply and comically reproachful, “the scientific jargon is ours, not yours. I spent some hours in that wonderful library at Grantville. I found a number of interesting biographies in there and I see that two of the most famous natural philosophers of the twentieth century were born in this one.”
Mazzare realized, watching those eyes twinkle through the eyeholes of the mask, that he must have let his bafflement show.
“Newton, the Englishman, and our very own Galileo Galilei,” Mazarini said.
Mazzare laughed, rueful. “Of course. And Germany’s Leibniz is from this time as well, and many give some of Newton’s credit to him. And Father Descartes, as well.”
“Just so. But please, Monsignor, let me not keep you, for I suspect that Messer il Doge will want to speak with you, as tête-à-tête as may be permitted him, before this function is over. I should be gone by then. Monsignor, if I may, I shall visit with you at the embassy before long.”
“That would be a genuine pleasure,” Mazzare said, meaning it.
“Seeya,” Mazarini said, and vanished into the plumaged crowd.
It was a second or two before Mazzare realized that the parting word had been spoken in a West Virginia accent, and a fair imitation of Harry Lefferts at that.
He kept the surprise off his face, he hoped. He took a quiet moment, then, standing alone in the crowd and listening to the faint strains of the musicians at the other side of the room playing something with a lot of strings in it; Mazzare was ill-equipped to recognize it. He tried to focus on the memory exercises to match names to faces in their proper pairings. Then the flow started up again, no important business to be done but introductions being made and pleasantries offered and returned in their turn. It was perhaps another fifteen minutes before the flow of introductions dried up again.
Jones, who had been at his elbow throughout, took advantage of the lull. “What was all that about?”
Mazzare chose to misinterpret the question. “I believe the last fellow was a factor for the Foscari.”
“Larry.” The tone was reproach enough.
“Didn’t you recognize him? Don’t say it, though, he’s not supposed to be here.”
“Oh. Someone we met back when?” Jones was looking around, apparently trying to see if Mazarini was still present.
“Back when, yes,” said Mazzare, resisting his own urge to rubberneck. “Gus mentioned that he was in town earlier.”
“Sure. Not a popular man, in Venice. Got some nerve, showing his face in here. Or not, as it happens.”
“Got some nerve, period,” Mazzare agreed.
“What’s he doing it for, anyway? If someone recognizes him, he’s in big trouble. Blows whatever chance he’s got of getting on the doge’s good side.” Jones had finally stopped looking around, and took a sip of his wine. Which was a full glass, and not appreciably lowered by the sip, Mazzare noted with a mixture of silent relief and self-admonition for not having confidence in his old friend.
“His chances were slim and none anyway,” Mazzare said. “But if there’s one thing that man is down in the history books as liking, it’s a touch of the theatrical.”
Jones simply chuckled, and then: “Eyes front, Monsignor.”
The doge was approaching, much in the manner of a ship under full sail in his robes—although, to American eyes, there was something faintly comical about the ducal cap. It resembled nothing so much as a smurf’s hat.
The doge was flanked and trailed, as everywhere, by a small retinue of Venetian nobility. Not so much an honor guard as a prisoner’s escort, the Venetian constitution being what it was.
There was a famous piece of architecture in Venice—Mazzare had read about it once in a travel guide—which tradition said was a gallows to hang misbehaving doges from. The office was a strange one, so hemmed about with checks and balances and separations of power that Venice appeared to be governed in spite of the doge, not because of him. In practice, the position carried a lot of influence that made up for the near total lack of power, an influence that the Venetians thought worth having and foreign diplomats had to cultivate. And, Mazzare thought, recalling their first formal meeting earlier that day, had to cultivate after climbing four flights of the Scala D’Oro to get to his receiving room.