“It would be better to say it did not happen, ja?” Heinzerling was now leaning against the buffet table where the wine-jug was, using his goblet to gesture. “Bedmar had paid a fifth column to open the city to Osuna’s fleet, it was said, and the state inquisitors hanged the principal conspirators shortly before the fleet sailed—after breaking their legs, in time-honored Venetian custom. The conspiracy ended, and Venice remains independent. There was trouble; I recall it even from the seminary. But a week later, there was the worse trouble in Prague and war began in Bohemia instead of in Italy.”
“And Bedmar’s back? I see the concern that might raise.” Mazzare was pointedly not looking at Heinzerling. A drink or two was fine, but he had promised Hannelore that he would not let his curate hit the sauce too hard.
“Ja, he is back.” Mazzare heard Heinzerling put the goblet down. “And I hear that he is bribing anything with hands to hold scudi. I hear only rumors, you understand.”
Mazzare sighed, and looked up at the ceiling a moment, noting the cracks in the plaster. “It all sounded so simple when Mike and Francisco set it out for me. A trade deal, they said. Stand there and look solemn and sign things, so the Venetians can pretend they’re not dealing with Jews, they said. D’Avaux is your only problem, they said. Bah!” He swept a hand across an imaginary chess-board, scattering the pieces of a game grown tiresome.
“Come on, Larry.” Jones’ grin looked as forced as his tone. “If it wasn’t hard, they wouldn’t need us.”
“Well, the women are going to be upset,” said Mazzare.
Heinzerling nodded. “Ja. If Hanni saw the filth in here, she would be ganz verruckt.”
That set Mazzare to chuckling. The formidable Frau Heinzerling governed domestic arrangements at the rectory with an iron will. Preconceptions about early-modern attitudes to cleanliness were crushed under her regular blitzkriegs with duster and beeswax. The place gleamed; not a surface in it couldn’t have been used for surgery.
“Speaking of domestic arrangements,” he said, “how are the troops and the various technical missions settling in?”
“Ganz gut,” said Heinzerling. “Captain Lennox and his troops are comfortable and probably looking for a drink.”
Heinzerling made a face as he mentioned the Scotsman. He and Lennox, in many ways, were two of a kind. One of the more famous brawls in the Thuringen Gardens had transpired when the two of them had debated their competing doctrines of justification one night. The Jesuit had won the debate and—narrowly, he insisted!—lost the ensuing fistfight. Lennox had paid the price in a broken tooth, two broken ribs and the finger he had dislocated on Heinzerling’s jaw. Carried back to the rectory, Heinzerling had had a black eye added to his injuries by a furious Hannelore keen to enforce her ambition of getting her man to settle down to parochial respectability. Gus had behaved himself, more or less, ever since.
“And the technical folks?” Mazzare dragged himself back from memories of happier, if harder-working, times.
“Also settled. The Stone boys are suggesting a few drinks with the local Committee, and I mean to go with them.”
Mazzare nodded, then frowned. “Is that wise? Should we be seen to have links of any kind with the Committee?”
“He has a point, Gus,” said Jones. “If we’re talking to the grandees, surely they’ll take fright if we’re also hobnobbing with revolutionaries and the like?”
Mazzare sat up straighter. “For the moment, let’s not take risks. Gus, have the Committee here been in touch yet?”
“Not so far as I know. Frank is a member of the CoC in Grantville, as I’m sure you are aware—all three of the rascals, probably—and he will be looking to make contact.” Heinzerling stroked his chin a moment. “In fact, I think it cannot be that the local Committee has been in touch, since it is all staff of the palazzo or the embassy in here so far. They will of course place someone with the servants.”
“Right.” Mazzare nodded. “What teenage boys do is one thing. You, Gus . . . another. So keep them out of trouble, if you can. And ask Sharon to help.”