Part II:
February, 1634
Sir, ’twas all one! My favour at her breast,
The dropping of daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule
She rode with round the terrace—all and each
Would draw from her alike the approving speech,
Or blush, at least.
Chapter 9
“Well, here we are, then. Venice.” Father Mazzare flopped down on a chaise longue of some sort, producing a small cloud of dust.
“Venice?” The Reverend Jones waved a hand in front of his face. “So that’s what that smell is.”
It was late afternoon of the day the USE delegation had finally arrived in Venice, after a long and arduous trip from Germany that had taken them up the Rhine by Constance, cross-country through the Graubunden to the Valtelline, and from there down toward Lake Como while being careful to skirt Milanese territory.
Most of the day had then been spent in pageantry, being paraded about and bombarded with pointless speeches entirely free of content. The experience seemed to have caused the Methodist minister to dig deep into reserves of sarcasm that even Mazzare had not suspected he possessed. For some hours now, Jones had taken to calling himself and Heinzerling “cultural attachés.”
The Grantville party—Mazzare still had to keep reminding himself that he was now an ambassador representing the newly formed United States of Europe—had been asked to stop for the night at a villa outside La Serenissima while the appropriate reception had been mounted for the embassy. Other states, other nations and cities had all but dispensed with the displays of outright potlatch that greeted a formal ambassador’s arrival. But Italy, and especially Venice, was still beggaring itself with Renaissance standards of behavior.
“Renaissance” was being charitable. The standard of organization shown so far by the Venetians had been downright medieval. The overnight stop while the procession had been organized had turned into a three-day jamboree. Three days, it had to be said, of good food, fine wine and general Italian hospitality, but Mazzare couldn’t help feeling it was probably symbolic of something to come.
The time had not been entirely wasted, of course. The ambassador would not be so rude as to arrive before his hosts were good and ready to receive him in style, to be sure. But the ambassador’s curate and general factotum, the good Father Augustus Heinzerling, SJ, was under no such restriction. Heinzerling had ridden ahead to apply his stout German boot—ad maiorum Dei gloriam, of course—to the collective backside of the staff at the lodgings that had been booked for the embassy pending the acquisition of a permanent base. Heinzerling had returned grumbling, with all his prejudices about Venetian housekeeping fully confirmed, but had pronounced himself satisfied. Just.
Francisco Nasi’s briefing on the Most Serene Republic of Venice had warned Mazzare of what he was likely to find. Venice positively reeked of a town keeping up appearances. The days when her fleet was the terror of Mediterranean pirates were long gone, her great houses of merchants were losing their ongoing trade war with just about everyone, and cash was tight. The plague that had devastated the city just two years earlier had piled ruin onto decay.
In the streets: gilded barges and processions of livery; fine dress and sumptuary for public display. Within doors: maintenance budgets had gone by the board, housekeeping was a poor second to ostentation and the fare a sharp contrast with the good living of the countryside.
And so a procession of boldly dressed cavaliers, gilded barges and an escort of stamping, bright-cuirassed soldiers had conveyed them to what Jones had christened the “Roach Hilton” for its mix of gilt and tawdriness. Mazzare couldn’t help feeling, with Jones, a certain annoyance at the thoroughly impractical approach these people took to their particular mix of shabbiness and gentility. All the more so since he himself was probably distantly related to them. Nice people, but perhaps not well focused on what was important. They—but he caught himself.
“Better keep a lid on the comments, Simon,” said Mazzare.
“The very model of tact, Larry. Tact is my middle name.” Jones lasted perhaps two seconds before snorting. “Death in Venice! Ha! How could anyone tell?”