It was, of course, too hot. Lennox had grown up near Dunbar and spent the last few years rattling around northern Germany. This, by all accounts a balmy spring day for Venice, was what he would think of as a scorching summer day. Venice was still just visible as he looked back, blued in the distance and hazy with the miles.
The horses were sweating already, although part of that was the nervousness of crossing on the flotilla of boats they'd hired in a hurry to take them to the mainland. They'd brought two remounts for everyone except the commercial agent, Giuseppe Cavriani, who'd joined them at the last minute. Cavriani seemed to know what he was doing around a horse, though, even with Lennox not inclined—between the heat and the shudders of his stomach after so short a boat trip on the virtually flat lagoon—to be in the least charitable.
And charitable he'd have to be to describe that fat papist Heinzerling as any kind of horseman. Oh, he was a fine enough fellow, for a damned Jesuit, but putting him on a horse was a cruelty to man and beast alike. Not just for the weight of the man—there were such things as big horses—but for the way he sat the poor creature. They could put a lad behind the horse with a shovel, pile the results in a sack across the saddle, and there'd be a definite improvement in the overall grace of the whole picture.
For all that, the Jesuit could stay in the saddle and ride well enough to cover ground. They'd have to keep to roads, though. The thought of Heinzerling going neck-or-nothing across the Borders of Lennox's youth was almost as good as a Buster Keaton movie for laughs.
Lennox kept his gaze carefully away from the hustle and shift of his fellows getting their gear triced up and themselves mounted, until an expectant silence told him that his sergeant was satisfied with the state of things. That was the hardest thing to do, something that came easy to the likes of Mister MacKay, who'd been born to his gentleman's station and was used to being done for. The Inner Sergeant kept telling Lennox to turn about and fuss over the detachment he'd brought. He resisted it, though, and turned to his men.
Good turnout, he thought, looking over them. Heinzerling and Cavriani were beside him, discussing something about their route in an undertone. Both of them spoke in Italian, Cavriani's first language despite being born in Geneva, and one of the huge number Heinzerling spoke. Lennox didn't have a notion what they were on about, so he addressed his men.
"Lads," he said, "We've tae catch the Doctor Stone's boys before they get in any mair trouble. So we've not to add to yon trouble our ain selves. Beggin' your presence, Sergeant Southworth, we're Protestants in a nation o' Catholics and soldiers o' the United States Marines abroad on duty. So we've to give no bad account o' ourselves." He dropped to a growl. "T'at means keep ye're thievin' honds tae yersels and ye're britches buttoned."
Not that that much needed saying, he thought. He'd picked good lads against that eventuality. Ritson, a sassenach but a solid, older man. Chosen man, in the regiment that was but didn't have his letters well enough for the new armed forces, he'd do if Southworth ever didn't. MacNeish, a teuchter but a solid man for all that, and Faul and Milton, both Scots. Southworth was a new lad, on the young side for a sergeant. He been a corporal until recently—the new American word for a chosen man still sounded odd to Lennox—but he had his letters and seemed to want to prove himself as the only papist noncom in the largely Protestant Marine Cavalry.
Good troopers—Marines, rather. Lennox still found himself occasionally using the old term. Well, to business. He turned to the priest and the facilitator, as Cavriani chose to call himself. "Have you gentlemen decided on our route?"
Cavriani nodded. "Captain, if you can lay us a course due southwest?"
"Aye, right enough I can." Lennox pulled from his pocket one of the new compasses that were being made in Grantville. They weren't much like the Silva ones that had been brought back—those had all gone with the engineers surveying for new roads, canals and mines—but they were a good deal better than the kind of instrument Lennox was used to seeing officers getting lost with.
"I've no good map, mind." The best one, which fit in his sabretache, had been traced from one that showed all of Italy on one small sheet. The major roads of the old Roman Empire were on it, and not much more. The other one, in a roll he'd tied across his saddle, had been drawn a few years before, and they had bought it in Venice just after they had arrived there. Lennox had realized, looking at it, that he had been badly spoiled by the kinds of maps Grantville had had; even the kind of maps they were making now in the USE. From the point of view of a cavalryman, down-time maps . . . sucked.
"We will be able to manage, I think," said Cavriani. "Southwest from here, cross the Adige as soon as we may and continue until we reach the road south to Ferrara. We should be there by tonight. Perhaps thirty, forty miles?"
"We'll be ahead of them?" Lennox liked the sound of a mere thirty or forty miles before sundown. With this small a party and with remounts, that should not be difficult.
"Assuming that they proceed to Rome, and I have every belief that they are going there, yes. I also have information that Marcoli chartered boats to Padua." Cavriani was beginning to sound less like a commercial agent and more like a solder with every word, Lennox noticed. He supposed it was like riding a horse; you never really forgot how. He'd be interested to find out what the man's history had been. He hadn't always been a facilitator, of that Lennox was well-nigh certain.
"Padua?" Lennox frowned. From memory that was off to the west of Venice, and Rome was almost due south.
Cavriani nodded. "From Padua, the road south takes you through Ferrara, Bologna, Firenze, and thence on to Rome. Very simple, very easy, and the most direct route. Coming to Chioggia and going across country to Ferrara, I think we will cut the corner and arrive there first. They will have passed much of the first day traveling to Padua, stayed there the night, and set out for Ferrara on the morrow. Despite having started three days before us, they'll be moving much more slowly. My reports tell me that they are hauling a volume of baggage which borders on the insane. We should expect them either late tomorrow or early the next day."
"You're sure they'll do that?" Lennox had to check, although doing so was ringing all manner of internal alarms. His Inner Sergeant was reacting to Cavriani as an officer, not simply as a civilian and a foreigner to boot. That said, he recognized the tendency and the man had a plan that made sense by Lennox's map. The other route, by way of Ravenna and Rimini, was farther off the straight line, and required that they take back roads that would be hard to find their way on. The embassy was fairly certain that none of the good maps were missing, and none of them showed the small routes either.
Cavriani nodded. "Ferrara it is," said Lennox. He took a sight with the compass. "To yon village first. Lead on, if you would."
Cavriani touched the brim of his cavalier hat in salute, wheeled his mount and moved off at trot.
Lennox turned in his saddle. "Marines! Walk-march! Trot!"
And they were off.
"Merde."
Frank had a rough idea what that word was French for, and the feeling with which Michel said it removed all doubt. "We're lost, aren't we?"
They were sitting on the driving seat of the first of the two wagons. Giovanna, Gerry and Dino were perched on their gear in the wagon-bed behind them, and the others were in the second wagon. They'd managed to stay somewhere near southwest for most of the morning, while the sun gave them some kind of clue which way they were headed. But then they'd taken a wrong turning somewhere. The sun was coming down in front of them, which definitely wasn't right.
It didn't help that the transport they had was pulled by what had to be the two oldest horses in Italy. Frank had seen, and dealt with, more horses in the three years since the Ring of Fire than he'd had to do with in the whole of his life before. He was never going to call himself any kind of equestrian expert, but this pair of nags were candidates for the glue-factory any day now. As a result, neither of them were in any great hurry to be off anywhere.
"You think we could get more horses? Or just different ones?" Frank wondered aloud, as he watched the bony ass in front of him plod along. They'd tried inspiring the beasts with the buggy whips that came with the carts. The only response had been a flick of an ear and a look over the shoulder with a round, white-edged and rheumy eye that said, in clear Equine, You must be joking. They hadn't tried again. "I think this one's older than I am."
Michel snorted. "Messer Frank, I think this horse is older than I am. I did not like to say at Padua, as Messer Marcoli had gone to such trouble, but . . ." Michel gave one of those wonderfully expressive French shrugs. The one that said, In a perfect world, monsieur, it would be otherwise. But what can you do?
Frank opened up the map, trying to get some notion of where they were again. He was no more successful than he had been the last time he'd tried. That had been—he looked at his watch—five minutes ago. The damned thing had been hand-drawn on something that felt like leather—too thick to be parchment or vellum, he thought, or maybe it was just expensive, hard-wearing stuff. Whoever had drawn it had been a whiz with curlicues and fancy writing. He'd been a world's expert on spouting whales and dreadful serpents in the sea. Frank doubted there was a better man anywhere for intricate little details in the corners or stylized representations of the Four Winds. He had, however, had no truck with fancified modern notions of a map actually representing anything on the ground. If nothing else, Frank knew for a fact that Italy wasn't that shape. The famous boot looked more like a fat slug crawling its way toward Africa.
What the hell were they going to do? This would be a good one for the Committee propaganda mill, he thought. Heroic rescue party dies of old age trying to find first major town on their route. Or, better still: Bold rescue party gets halfway there, horses boldly die of old age, film at eleven. What to do?
There was a rustle of skirts. Giovanna leaned over the back of the driving bench between Frank and Michel. "Should we ask for directions?"
Both Frank and Michel looked at her. "Eh?" Frank said.
"One of these fellows"—she waved to the side of the road—"might know where we are. And the way to Ravenna."
"What, you mean just ask?" Frank demanded. The little voice in the back of his mind muttered, Stereotype warning! You are acting like a stereotype male! Warning! Warning!
There were times when having been raised by Tom Stone was a real pain in the butt. On the other hand . . .
Well, actually, it did make sense. "Sure," said Frank. "Stop the cart, Michel."
Ducos' expression was as sour as you could ask for. But he was hoist on his own petard, since he'd insisted himself that Frank was the leader of the party. So, however grudgingly, he did as he was told.
Frank got down, trusting to Salvatore on the cart behind to stop in time. Or, more accurately, trusting the horse. Near as Frank could tell, the horses were both better drivers than anyone on the carts.
They'd been ambling slowly into a village that consisted of a small cluster of houses and a church. There was a orchard of some kind next to the road. Frank was pretty sure it was an olive grove, although he wouldn't swear to it. They had that dusky grayish-green color to them, anyway, which he associated with olive trees.
By the gate to the orchard was a stone bench. The little old guy who sat on it, taking his ease in the late afternoon sunshine, was straight from central casting. Peasant, wizened, Italian, one of. Frank suspected that he'd probably not get much sense out of the guy. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
"Excuse me, how do we get to Ravenna?"
"Eh?" The oldster cupped a hand behind one ear. Frank's heart sank. Great, he's deaf.
He repeated himself. "Excuse me, how do we get to Ravenna?"
The response was a torrent of . . . gibberish. Well, nearly gibberish.
Recollection shyly raised its hand at the back of class. Of course! Italy was full of dialects, and Frank only knew Veneziano. His heart sank. If he could barely talk to the locals this close to Venice, what was it going to be like when they got further away?
Still, Frank managed to pick out a few bits. "Babble babble, the priest, garble garble, reads books, babble babble, foreign parts."
The machine-gun speed hadn't helped. "More slowly, please?"
The old guy raised the volume as well as slowing down. "Talk to the priest," he said, then a few words Frank didn't recognize at all, finishing with "Foreign parts." The oldster added a hefty wad of phlegm onto the ground beside him to show his opinion of the said foreign parts.
"You say the priest?" Frank tried, slowly and loudly.
"Si, the priest." The old guy lifted a gnarled stick—also straight out of central casting—and pointed down the road toward the church.
Frank turned back. "I think he means we should ask at the church. I'm not sure that's a good idea?" He made it a question.
Michel shrugged. The man had a vast collection of shrugs, each subtly different. Frank wondered if the French had a school somewhere where they taught shrugging. If so, Ducos had graduated summa cum laude.
This one said Maybe, maybe not. I think maybe we should chance it.
"Okay," Frank said. After all, why not? The chances of their pursuers coming here any time soon were slim. If they didn't know where they were themselves, how were assassins going to track them down?
The priest, when they finally found his house behind the church, turned out to be a little, cheerful, bouncy fellow, who at least had enough Veneziano to get by in and actually spoke formal Italian, which knocked down the communications barrier. And yes, he knew the way to Ravenna, and gave them directions. And indeed, there was a coaching inn only a little way further on, the establishment of his brother-in-law's uncle, who could sell them fine new horses, excellent beasts. They could be in Ravenna in two days with no unseemly haste. Perhaps they could be so good as to do humble Father Rizzi the honor of remaining for a little refreshment? He should so, so like to hear news of the wider world, what they had heard of the war in the Germanies and these strange people who had come, it was said, from the future.
Frank almost had a heart attack at that last bit, until he realized that the priest was just talking in general terms. Father Rizzi clearly understood that Frank was a foreigner of some kind, but in rural Italy—as anywhere in rural Europe and even in most cities—the concept of "foreigner" was blessedly all-inclusive. If you weren't from here—here being the immediate locality—you were a foreigner.
Oh, no, they couldn't possibly impose . . .
But he insisted! Positively insisted! He would not hear of a suggestion that he be inhospitable!
By the time it was all done, they had agreed to stay a little while, to have a light repast of cold chicken and ham and cheese and good, fresh bread, to sample some of the local wine and generally shoot the breeze with the good father and bring the news of the world to his sleepy hamlet.
Frank was nervous, at first, but eventually he realized the priest had no suspicions whatsoever. He was the kind of cheerful soul who simply found suspicion even more foreign territory than the nations whose news he wanted to hear. He even put them up for the night when it got late, and had his housekeeper see to their breakfast in the morning. And refused all offer of payment from their limited stocks of coin, for he had received, he said, quite enough recompense in the news they'd brought of the wider world. The villagers laughed at him for reading books and being interested in foreign places, and so it was a double joy to be brought such a wealth! He hefted the thick stack of broadsheets with Buckley's articles on them.
Setting off down the road to Ravenna, via Father Rizzi's brother-in-law's uncle's inn and used horse dealership, Frank felt kind of guilty about the whole thing. The priest had been kind and generous, feeding and sheltering them out of all proportion to what they'd given him in return. And here they were on their way to strike a blow at the church he represented.
Mostly, thought, Frank was just frustrated. Really, really, really frustrated. He'd spent most of the evening wondering if he dared asked the priest to marry Giovanna and him on the spot. But . . .
It just wouldn't have worked. Las Vegas–style quickie weddings were a universe away. Leaving aside all the lengthy procedures that Frank knew a Catholic marriage required, even in his old universe, Father Rizzi would have insisted on proof of parental permission—for Giovanna, certainly, if not for Frank. To be sure, Giovanna's brothers could have vouched for the legitimacy of the whole enterprise, and there was enough a family resemblance for their sibling status to be accepted. But the priest would still have wanted a full explanation for the reason the father himself couldn't be present.
And what was there to say? He broke his leg in Padua playing engineer and we had to leave him behind and keep going so we can rescue Galileo before the assassins catch up with us . . .
Probably wouldn't play in Peoria. Much less here.
Frank sighed. Giovanna's hand slid alongside his ribs and caressed him. She leaned over from where she was sitting behind him and whispered in his ear. "Maybe when we get to Ferrara. If not, Rome." She punctuated the whispers with a lingering kiss to his ear that was not even remotely chaste.
Frank sighed. The new horse was a lot better, sure, but what he really wanted was a jet airliner. Rescuing Galileo—or dying in the attempt—ranked a long way second to his principal preoccupation.
On the positive side, he didn't notice any of the tedium of their slow progress through the country roads of Romagna. Neither that day, nor the next. So marvelous were the erotic fantasies that flooded his brain. Which was light-headed, anyway, because most of his blood supply seemed to be permanently concentrated in more netherly regions.
Somewhere, that nasty little voice of treason was muttering uncouth phrases about thinking with other organs than brains, but Frank paid no attention at all. Giovanna's hand was now resting more or less permanently on his ribs. Caressing, and caressing, and caressing. Compared to that promise of joy and delight, what was Reason?
Nothing more than the pathetic Persian hordes gathered at Issus. Frank sneered at it like a veritable Alexander.