by Eric Flint
"My apologies, Your Eminence," she murmured. Then, stood aside and motioned with her hand. "Please, come in. I'll take you to him immediately. He's awake now. Was, at least, when I left him two minutes ago."
As they moved through the salon leading to the great central staircase, the cardinal gave Sharon a sidelong look. "Did you really put him in your own bed?"
"Yes. It's a good bed—one of the best in the embassy—and I can easily manage in one of the Stone boys' rooms. He is absent at the moment." She decided not to mention that the Stone kids seemed to have all decamped on some hare-brained scheme. Bedmar probably already knew, but . . .
She hurried past the problem. "I'll be spending most of my time in that room anyway, except when I'm actually sleeping. It's big and I'm used to it, so . . . it just seemed like the best place to put him."
She saw no reason to mention the confusing swirl of emotions that had been involved in the decision also. Listen to your woman! she'd screamed at the man, less than two days before, in what could quite literally be called the heat of action.
Had she meant it? She still didn't know herself. Looking back, she could see that it had been, tactically, exactly the right thing to say to get Ruy out of her line of fire. And that's still the party line, she told herself firmly.
But . . .
She hadn't been thinking tactically at all, at the moment she said it. They had just been words, boiling up out of a cauldron of fear and fury. In vino veritas, the old saying went. In wine there is truth. Could the same be said of adrenaline?
She didn't know; wasn't even prepared to think about it now. What she did know was that Ruy Sanchez could quite possibly be dead very soon. That bed was, perhaps, the last bed he would ever sleep in. So had come the decision, as of its own volition, just like the words she'd screamed.
If that was to be Ruy Sanchez's last bed, then it would be hers. Even if it had never been put to its accustomed use between man and woman. He would still die in it.
And, on the plus side, it might help keep the pestiferous man alive. Most doctors and all nurses understood that a cheerful patient—especially a sanguine one—had a better chance of surviving serious illness than one who was morose and gloomy. Finding himself in Sharon's own bed when he came out of anesthesia had certainly seemed to pick up Sanchez's spirits.
Old goat.
The first victory! Then had come the inevitable stroking of the mustachios. Now I must only persuade the slippery woman to get back into her own bed. An interesting twist . . .
Bedmar seemed to understand at least some of what was involved. As they moved up the stairs, he gave her another sidelong glance. "It seems important to tell you that Ruy Sanchez has spoken of you many times." The cardinal's old lips thinned. "Sometimes to the point of sheer tedium. For me, if not him. But he has—never once—told me anything of what, ah, you might call his amatory success."
Bedmar shook his head. "He is something of peculiar man, you know. Where others would lie in order to boast before their fellows, he would—ha!" He gave Sharon an almost gleeful cock of the head. "Do you know that—just five days ago—I had to drag him away from a levee lest he challenge one of these Venetian merchants to a duel? The man had offended him by making sly innuendos complimenting Sanchez on his success in bedding you."
Sharon's eyed widened. "You have got to be kidding. Ruy was going to fight a guy"—she grimaced, now having seen what a Ruy Sanchez fight looked like—"because he assumed that Ruy had seduced me? Which, in point of fact, is exactly what Ruy has been trying to do these past many weeks."
"Oh, indeed." Bedmar barked a laugh. "And they make jokes about we Castilians and our touchy honor! I sometimes think a proper Catalan would take offense at the movement of the heavenly bodies, did the mood take him. Challenge the moon to a duel. Rise before dawn to meet it sword in hand. And then accuse the moon of cowardice and dishonor when it refused to appear on the chosen ground."
Sharon shook her head. "You may well be right. I don't know. Ruy is the only Catalan I've ever met, so far as I know."
They'd reached the door to her bedroom. Sharon opened it and ushered the cardinal in.
Ruy was lying in the bed, glaring at the window.
"You malingering bastard," growled the cardinal. "And who gave you permission in the first place to go pick a fight on behalf of these heretics? Who are also, I might remind you, our king's mortal enemies. For the moment."
"Never mind that," Sanchez growled. "Spanish kings change enemies as often as they change clothes, and you know it as well as I do."
He pointed an accusing finger at the window. "Something's going out there! What is it? I can't hear well enough because the window is closed."
Now he glared at Sharon. "And I can't get up and look for myself because she told me not to move."
Bedmar's eyes widened. "And you obeyed her?" He turned and gave Sharon a very courtly bow. "My deepest congratulations, signora. You have succeeded where princes of state and church alike have failed often enough. Ignominiously, at times."
Ruy slapped a hand on the bedcovers. "Damnation! What is happening?"
"Oh, hold your horses," Sharon snorted, moving toward the window. As she drew near, she realized that Ruy was right. There was some kind of commotion going on out there.
She hurried a little, the last few paces, to throw open the window. Then, leaned over to look out.
"Oh, my."
"What is it, signora?" The cardinal had come to stand behind her. Then: "Interesting."
He took his head out of the window and looked back at Sanchez. "It will be a bit more difficult to escape this time, I fear. With you in that absurd condition!"
Sanchez winced. "The Arsenalotti? Again?"
But Sharon had been listening more closely. And she was probably the only one of the three in the room who could have really followed the—ah, debate—going on below. Most of the exchange between Billy Trumble and his two Marines and the mob gathering outside the embassy was taking place between Billy and his friend Conrad Ursinus. Who, naval officer of the USE or not, seemed to be the leader of the mob.
Well . . . not exactly. Leader, perhaps, but also one who was trying to convince his followers to follow him.
It was her turn to wince. Ursinus really did have an impressive command of the cruder forms of invective. Billy Trumble was no slouch either, come to it.
"Just stay put, Sanchez," she commanded. "The gist of what's happening is that Billy is assuring the crowd that you Spaniards were not complicit in the foul and dastardly and—oh lots of other words—murder of Joe Buckley. Indeed, he is casting some aspersions on the crowd itself—he really shouldn't use language like that—for their, ah, stupidity is the mildest term he's used so far, in even thinking so."
She pursed her lips for a moment, whistling a little. "Um. That was a particularly unnecessary flourish, I think. Now he's pointing out to the crowd—mostly in what we'd call four letter terms—that even sorry imbecilic—ah, that last expression refers to incestuous persons—should have enough sense to understand who was really to blame. The more so since the Venetian residents on Murano who came to our aid immediately thereafter will vouch—I'm really cleaning this up a lot, you understand; maybe in another universe I should look into getting a job as a UN translator—that we found evidence planted by Ducos' agents as well, of course, as having two of the agents themselves now in the custody of the Venetians—although God knows what's happened to them since—and—"
She broke off, recoiling from the window as if suddenly splashed by a wave. "Oh, Lord! Now Conrad's getting into the act—his language really stinks—I wonder if he and Billy set this up ahead of time?—and the gist of what he's saying, leaving aside about five hundred I-told-you-sos, is that they ought to be heading for the French embassy."
The crowd started chanting something. The name "d'Avaux" figured prominently in the chants. Within seconds, the sound of the chants grew dimmer in the distance.
Sharon closed the windo
w. "And that's that. I do hope, for his sake, that the comte has a fast horse."
"Sweet it is," murmured Bedmar. He took three little prancing steps. "I could die now, happily. That stinking Frenchman, on the run!"
Ruy shared none of his glee. Again, he slapped the bedcovers. "Curse you, woman! I want to watch."
"You don't move, Sanchez," she hissed. "You don't even think about it."
Bedmar, grinning, plunked himself on the bed next to Ruy. "So, Ruy, tell me. How were you so foolish as to let"—he pointed a finger at Sharon—"that Gorgon, that Medusa, that black demoness from the Pit, inveigle you into her bed?"
"She tricked me," Ruy insisted. "It was most foully done. Lured me into an ambush, the witch."
Chapter 41
"Yes, Frank, you." Marcoli said. In just such tones might he have ordered Frank to form up a party of men and Take That Hill.
Frank stole a glance at Giovanna. She was gazing at him, eyes shining. Frank knew in that moment that whatever they did to convicted felons in Italy in the seventeenth century, he had no choice but to face it with a smile. Her eyes!
He couldn't see a way out, unless . . . "What about Michel?"
"Non, Frank," Ducos said firmly. "I am really little more than a clerk. Oh, for certain, I am from the back alleys of Paris and I own myself a fair hand in any desperate business. But I have not the temperament to be a leader—whereas you do, Frank."
"Me?" Frank found that particularly mystifying. He'd been brought up a hippie, not an army brat. At least he thought army brats grew up knowing about this chain-of-command stuff. Kids on a commune sure didn't.
On the other hand . . .
Well, yes, he supposed it might be true that he was often the guy who seemed to get things organized. That wasn't just true with his brothers, either, something which could be explained by the fact that he was the oldest. He'd been the one who got the soccer league organized and off the ground, too.
Um. And now that Frank thought about it, if he hadn't been along on this expedition they'd probably still be in the outskirts of Venice. Frank had been the one who'd constantly finagled the Marcolis to settle on a course of action—any course of action—and just do it. Antonio Marcoli was a natural leader in terms of charisma and decisiveness, to be sure. The problem was that his enthusiasm for just about everything led him to change his mind about four times an hour—each new change of plan being advanced just as enthusiastically and decisively as the preceding ones. Following the man was a bit like following a child leading the way in an amusement park. He wanted to take all the rides at once.
Still, there just had to be a better way out of this. "Messer Marcoli, I'm only nineteen years old—well, okay, almost twenty. Still, by your standards—even, some ways, the standards of my own folk—I'm not a grown man yet."
"Nonsense!" Michel exclaimed. "Age has nothing to do with leadership. Consider Alexander the Great. And you have already devised a plan to avoid our assassins!"
Frank stumbled over the analogy with Alexander. "Huh? I did? What are you talking about?"
"The route through Ravenna!" Michel clapped him on the back. The kind of hearty, manly reassurance that raised the hackles of every hippie-trained instinct Frank had. He really didn't like Ducos, he finally decided.
"Hold on, Michel!" Frank protested. "You decided on Ravenna."
"Ah, but I would not have thought to go another way than the main road to begin with! Truly I would not, Frank. I have some small command of the geography of this country, but I lack the supple mind, the decisiveness. You supplied these lacks. I can assist with the details in some small way, but . . ." Michel trailed off with a very expressive, and very Gallic shrug.
"I don't even know where Ravenna is—"
"Have no fear, Frank!" Marcoli said. "I came prepared. I have a map!"
Great, Frank thought. A seventeenth-century map, I'll bet. He wondered whether they should have thought to bust out one of the up-time maps that he knew the embassy had. Too late now, of course. One foot back in Venice and they'd be lucky to get as much as ten yards off the boat before they were jumped by assassins. Did they dress all in black, with masks, he wondered? Or was that just ninjas?
Maybe they had ninjas in Venice. There'd be a hell of a market for their services, he thought sourly. Maybe there were adverts in the Ninja Times of Japan. "Come to Venice for the most lucrative working holiday of your life!"
At that point Frank realized he was on the verge of decidedly unmanly hysterics—which was definitely not the thing to do with that look in Giovanna's eyes. Dark brown or not, the eyes seemed as bright as anything he'd ever seen. "Okay," he muttered.
"So you will lead! Okay! Splendid! And your plan for Ravenna is a good one, for it lets you avoid Florentine lands, where we might have had trouble." Marcoli positively beamed. Like a lot of folks down-time, he'd picked up the word okay very quickly. No wonder, it was a useful word.
Frank had a whole lot more useful words assembled to go, too, right on the tip of his tongue. Words and terms he had to firmly suppress, like out of your mind and you gotta be kidding.
There was just no way, not with that look on Giovanna's face. Her expression was an odd combination of adoration, serenity and smugness. Frank understood that he'd crossed some kind of invisible line here. Giovanna's beloved father had just more or less officially declared him a Certified Adult Male, Prime Cut. Eminently suitable for his daughter in all respects. That magic moment—simultaneously treasured and dreaded in varying proportions by all involved parties—when the Prospective Father-in-Law solemnly avers and avows that The Young Fellow Is Okay With Him.
It was a bit like being branded. As Frank recalled from various movies he'd seen, the calf always bellowed in protest. As much, he suspected, due to its fear of the future—yup, young fella, you're now certified Grade-A meat on the hoof—as the pain of the moment.
He felt like bellowing himself. How in the hell did I ever wind up in this fix? It was as if fate and destiny had guided him as surely—and with as much malice aforethought—as ranchers herded their cattle into the slaughtering pens.
Firmly, he shook his head. Giovanna was at the center of this, after all, as least so far as he was concerned. And she was hardly the equivalent of a slaughtering pen.
Frank took a long slow breath, his eyes closed, doing his best to think everything through. Everything that mattered to him, leaving aside what he thought about the Galileo affair. Getting married at an early age didn't hold the same fears for Frank that it might for most nineteen-year-olds. Rather the opposite, in fact. Most kids hadn't been raised on a hippie commune. Yes, there were advantages; and, all things considered, Tom Stone was probably about as good a dad as you could ask for. But Frank also understood the limits of the "free and easy life." Truth be told, there was something deeply attractive to him about the kind of traditional marriage that he was looking at here. "Traditional," as in seventeenth century.
He opened his eyes and looked at Giovanna. She met his gaze happily, confidently, serenely. The girl was almost two years younger than Frank. But she had made her decision and had no problem with it at all. That she wanted Frank as much as he wanted her, he knew for sure by now. Till death do us part and all that, too. Whatever her ideological notions, Giovanna was really no modern girl. That was part of the attraction, Frank knew. He had no idea where his own mother had wandered off to, after she left the commune. Neither did Ron; neither did Gerry. Whereas none of Giovanna Marcoli's kids would ever wonder about what had happened to her. She'd either be there, or she'd be in a grave.
Say whatever else you would about the Marcolis, not one of them was faithless.
Okay, done, he said to himself. It was time to decide, and the decision was really easy to make. Even if it did lock him into the goofiest set of in-laws anybody could hope to have. And even if it did commit him to lead what was probably the screwiest political caper anybody had ever come up with.
See if you think that on the rack, lover boy, ca
me a little Voice of Treason.
But Frank chose to ignore the voice. Much as Alexander the Great, he fancied for a moment, chose to ignore the odds at Issus.
Yup. He died young too, snickered the Voice. Thirty-three. You'll beat that by a country mile. Here lies Frank Stone. 1984 to 1634. The only Great Hero on record dumb enough to kill himself off two hundred and fifty years before he was even born.
* * *
Dino put his head around the door at that moment. "The carts, they are here."
"I guess we better get loaded up, then," Frank said firmly.
He turned back to Antonio. "Messer Marcoli, I want to marry your daughter."
He heard Giovanna clap her hands, once, but kept his eyes on the father.
"Of course," Marcoli said immediately. "I can think of no man I should rather have for a son-in-law." He gave his daughter a quick, sly glance. "Nor do I foresee any problems in convincing the child to respect her father's wishes."
Frank risked a glance himself. Giovanna's smile was the widest he'd ever seen on any human being. Anatomically speaking, it was a little scary.
But he brought his eyes back to Marcoli at once. The hard part was still to come. "We can't get married today. It's just not possible."
Marcoli frowned. "Well, of course not. Posting the banns alone would require—" He broke off suddenly, glancing back and forth between Frank and Giovanna. "Ah."
The frown deepened. For a moment, threatening to become Jovian. Then, to Frank's relief, began to fade away.
"To be sure," Marcoli murmured. "You will want your intended to accompany you to Rome."
"Yes, sir. Ah . . ." How to say it? "It will be dangerous for you here, sir. You and Massimo both. What with the assassins coming after us."
Marcoli waved his hand. "Yes, yes, I understand. A desperate business. Massimo and I will shortly be on the run, I have no doubt at all. Our chances? Not good. No, not good. I agree. Giovanna would be safer with you."
