“Well, I don’t know,” said Mazzare. “Until less than three years ago I was nothing more than an ordinary small-town priest. Here we are.” He opened the door.
Back in the reception room, some more of the delegation had finished unpacking and had come down to wet their whistles. “Everyone!” Mazzare said loudly. “This is Maestro Benjamin Luzzatto, the man Don Francisco picked to advise us once we arrived.”
Luzzatto gave a little half-bow to the people there.
“I guess it’s introductions all round, then,” said Mazzare. “We decided that the thing to do was to hand off as much of Grantville’s knowledge as we could, to help Venice be as effective a trading partner as possible and to give an earnest of our good faith. We’ll be advised by you about that, of course, but for the time being we have a few people with us who’re going to be able to help. Doctor Stone, as you call him, is still upstairs getting settled in. No doubt he’ll be down later. With him is—ladies first—Sharon Nichols. She’s really our doctor here.”
Sharon nodded solemnly, as she had done everything for the past months. The statuesque young woman was not wearing “widow’s weeds,” true—and never had—but she was still grieving deeply.
“Sharon’s a doctor of medicine where Tom Stone is a doctor of chemistry.” That was something of a fib, designed to augment her status. Sharon wasn’t an MD. She wasn’t even technically an RN, although she had the equivalent training and experience—even real expertise, when it came to battlefield traumas. But Mazzare had learned early on that nursing when it wasn’t done by nuns was regarded as low-rent scut-work in this day and age. Even the nuns only did it as a sort of self-mortification in most places. Besides, given the state of seventeenth-century medical knowledge and practice, a mostly trained twentieth-century nurse was considerably better than a doctor by local standards. A lot better, in Sharon’s case. She seemed to have inherited her father James’ skill as well as his very dark skin color.
If the Jewish lawyer was surprised to see a Moorish woman in their midst—and he probably wouldn’t think of Sharon as anything else—he gave no sign of it. “An honor to meet you, Dottoressa Nichols,” said Luzzatto, half-bowing again.
Sharon nodded. “Charmed, Maestro Luzzatto.”
Mazzare thought for a moment about how to continue. Then: “As well as the medical side of the health mission we have brought with us, we propose offering some of our learning in the matter of public sanitation. Venice has a unique position in this regard, having the lagoon to drain into, but there is a deal more that can be done. The experts in these matters in Grantville are of the opinion that improved health begins with improved public sanitation, which is why Herr Mauer has come with us. Ernst has spent the last two years as one of the lead contractors in the reconstruction of Magdeburg’s sewer system.”
Mauer stood up straight from his habitual slouch and made a half-bow of his own. “An honor, Maestro Luzzatto.” The greeting was one of the few bits of Italian that Mauer had reliably learned; half of the challenge in his passing anything to the Venetians would be the translation. Mazzare didn’t think the translator would be worked too hard, either. Mauer was, at his most voluble, a laconic man. He was, however, a man with a reputation as a civil engineer. A master builder before the Ring of Fire, he had leapt at the opportunities offered by the rebuilding of Magdeburg and grabbed them with both hands. He had not been the only one to do so, but he had been the first to specialize, and had the kind of detailed mind needed to plan and execute a huge sewer system. Over six months he had educated himself in sanitation engineering and the English language, found his metier and laid the foundations of a modest fortune in civil engineering.
“Next,” said Mazzare, “it was thought by our principals in Grantville that advances in shipbuilding might usefully be communicated to the shipwrights of Venice’s Arsenal. Perhaps some of those advances will prove less than useful, but we anticipate a great volume of trade through Venice. If it can be carried in improved Venetian hulls there is a greater opportunity for the merchants of La Serenissima to profit. Hence we have with us Lieutenant Ursinus from our naval yards at Magdeburg. He has brought plans for a number of different kinds of vessels and has experience in building several types of craft. The young officer standing next to him is Lieutenant William Trumble, part of our Marine escort.”