Kat swallowed. The Petrine church had its agents too. This was probably one of them. The Petrines were more tolerant than the Paulines, but in the factional fighting . . . well, people were ground between them. Whole cities were ground. If the rumor her grandfather had told her was true, Ferrara could be next. The Po River city had played a delicate balance between Venice and Rome, against Milan and the North . . . And sometimes the other way around.
She was relieved to see her grandfather stumping up. “Let’s go home. The conversation’s turned to politics, and the more I listen to these fools the angrier I get,” said the old man, his grizzled eyebrows lowered in an angry frown. “Except for Petro Dorma—and Francesca de Chevreuse, from the little she said—they’re all a lot of sheep. Bah. The Republic of Venice must stand for the Republic of Venice. Not for Milan, or Rome, anyone else. Come. I want to go home.”
Predictably, Alessandra pouted. “The night’s still young. I’ll come home later. I want to meet some of those knights from Germany. They’re supposed to be here later.”
“You’ll come home now,” growled the old man. He turned his lowered brow on Katerina. “As for you, young lady. I won’t have you associating with the likes of that Della Galbo. He’s nothing but a cheap crook. Even the slave-trading Dandelos are not as low. I want you home, too.”
“Grandpapa, I’m only too glad to obey you,” said Kat from under lowered lashes. “I couldn’t stand him.”
The thunderous brow lightened. “You’re a minx, girl. Now, let’s get out and find a gondola to take us home. The Montescue have been here. Shown face. Shown we are still Case Vecchie.” The pride in that old voice was as deep as the ocean and as hard as granite.
Chapter 45
Lopez followed the Montescues out of the palace, keeping far enough back not to be noticed. As the family began embarking onto their gondola, he emerged onto the steps. A moment later, his two companions joined him.
“A very nice voice, she has, even with the tremor of fear in it,” said Lopez quietly. “I recognized it from the counseling session I had with her last year.”
“You should be ashamed of yourself, Eneko,” chuckled Diego. “Frightening girls the way you do.”
Lopez shrugged slightly. “The encounter was quite accidental. Her small sins cause her to fear the suspicion of great ones. Of which, as it happens, I am quite sure she is guiltless. She is involved somehow with the evil which is coiling within this city, but she is not one of its vessels.”
Diego turned his head to peer down the canal where the Montescue gondola had vanished. “I agree. If Satan were that capable, old friend, we would long ago have vanished into the maw of the Antichrist.”
Lopez rubbed his bad leg. “Bad today,” he muttered. “Come, brothers. Since the Grand Metropolitan has seen fit to dole out some more funds, let us employ a gondola for a change.”
After they climbed into the gondola, Diego returned to the subject. “How involved do you think she is, Eneko? And in what manner?”
The gondola was just pulling into the Grand Canal. The Basque priest stared thoughtfully at the statue of the winged lion in the Piazza San Marco, quite visible in the moonlight. “Has it struck you yet, brothers, how many odd coincidences we have stumbled across since we arrived here in Venice?”
Diego and Pierre glanced at each other. Pierre shrugged. “What coincidences?” asked Diego.
“One. The coincidence that I happened to witness Katerina Montescue and Benito Valdosta—yes, it was he; I’m sure of it now that I’ve had a glimpse of him—engaged in mysterious activity on the same evening and in the same locale that the Woden casket was brought to Venice. Two. The coincidence that those two had met each other in the first place. Three. The coincidence that we happened to find lodgings in a part of the city which would enable us to observe the older brother Marco engaged in charitable work. Four. The coincidence that Katerina Montescue—”
“Enough, enough!” chuckled Diego. “Odd, I admit. But what’s the rhyme and reason to any of it?”