"Well, Rome's better found than Venice was, I suppose." Jones was looking around the apartment that they had been given in the Palazzo Barberini for their stay. "Not as roomy, but it's clean, at least."
"You know, Simon, for a married man you can be a real old woman at times." Mazzare chuckled.
Jones blew a loud raspberry and sat down while a small platoon of servants scurried to sort out their baggage.
Mazzare looked around, feeling uncomfortable sitting down where someone else was working. The Barberinis' general program of beautification of their surroundings had its upside, and staying in their palazzo was part of it. Many years before by his own time—the three-and-three-quarter-century-wide fault line notwithstanding—a much younger Father Lawrence Mazzare had come to Rome for the first time and checked off the tourist sights methodically.
The Palazzo Barberini, by then a museum, was one of the ones he'd gone back to. The place was wall to wall with art and treasures and just plain beautiful things. It was a little sparser now than his own memory of it, but then the place had had over three hundred years to fill up by the time he'd last seen it.
"Simon?"
"Yes, Larry?" Jones had lain back in his chair and draped a handkerchief over his face. The trip down from Venice had been wearing, for all it had been taken in the most comfortably sprung coach they had been able to find. Jones, slightly the older of the two, had a far less ascetic disposition than Mazzare and gave vent to his discomforts and took the load off whenever he could.
"Point of grammar. If I remember having been in this very room, but won't have been here for another three hundred and—let me think—fifty-one years, is that deja vu all over again?"
"It is this business about Sharon Nichols and the man Sanchez that concerns me perhaps the most, Michael." Nasi leaned back in his chair across from the prime minister's desk and somewhat cattercorner to it. "Mostly, perhaps, because we can do nothing anyway about this Galileo affair, except hope that the Stone boys refrain from sheer madness or that Lennox catches them before they don't. Whereas . . ." The sentence drifted to a halt as if it had simply run out of gas.
Mike Stearns laced his fingers together and leaned forward on the desk. "Explain."
Unusually, the Sephardic banker needed time to organize his thoughts. He'd spoken somewhat impulsively, which was quite unlike him. Since Rebecca was trapped in Amsterdam and Ed Piazza had had to relinquish his duties as secretary of state in order to administer Thuringia as the new governor appointed by Gustav Adolf, Francisco had come to assume many of Rebecca and Ed Piazza's roles for Mike as well as being the head of the USE's intelligence service. There were some ways in which he was very diffident about the business. Rebecca's tasks as national security adviser he felt confident to handle, but he could hardly serve Mike as the same sort of personal confidante. And this was . . .
Perhaps a touchy matter. On this, unlike most subjects, Americans could be quite unpredictable.
"Well, to begin with, Michael, as a spy myself—'spook,' to use that phrase you so enjoy—I am naturally given to suspicion. I am uncomfortable with the fact that a known agent of the Spanish empire with whom we are at war has now been residing for some days in our embassy in Venice." That was the easy part. He cleared his throat. "Yes, I understand the seriousness of his medical condition—Tom Stone explained in reply to one of my queries; at far greater length, I might add, than he normally explains anything; which itself disturbs me a bit because he too seems to have become something of a partisan of this peculiar Spanish fellow—"
"You're prattling, Francisco," Mike said mildly. "Not like you at all. And he's not really 'Spanish' anyway, he's Catalan." There seemed to be a trace of humor there. "Weren't you the one who gave me a briefing not two months ago on the significance of the distinction?"
Francisco smiled, acknowledging the hit. "Well, yes. Still . . ."
"Oh, just spit it out, will you? I won't bite, I promise." The prime minister unlaced his fingers and leaned back in his own chair. "What you're really wondering is why—let's be precise, here—the bed he's been recuperating in belongs to Sharon Nichols."
Nasi must have looked a little startled. Mike smiled thinly. "I do occasionally read the entire reports, not simply your summaries. I made it a point to do so, in this case. If for no other reason, because James Nichols is one of my closest friends."
For some obscure reason, Francisco felt compelled to play devil's advocate for a moment. "You will have noted then that there is no evidence—unless she sneaks about at night, which doesn't seem to match her profile—"
Mike scowled, as he usually did when Nasi lapsed into jargon.
"Well, you know what I mean."
" 'Course I do!" Mike snorted. "So why don't you just come out and say it? Sharon Nichols and 'sneak around at night' is pure bullshit. Bull-shit. A nice, clear term that beats all that psychobabble six ways from Sunday." Mike levered himself back upright. "We're talking about a woman here who told her father straight to his face that she was going to spend the night with Hans Richter. Then did it. In his house. The way he tells the story, even instructed him to have breakfast ready the next morning—although I'm sure James made that last bit up himself. I could tell. He doesn't hardly ever brag about anything except his daughter."
Mike was back to leaning on the desk, using laced fingers to support the weight. "So she's not screwing Sanchez. To use another excellent nonbabble term. Even if that were possible, anyway—which, if I interpreted Stoner's technical details correctly, it probably isn't. Not recuperating from that wound, not this quickly. Not even if this Sanchez guy was a man in his twenties."
Nasi relaxed. He'd never be as comfortable as so many—though certainly not all—Americans were, in the casual way they discussed sex. His own culture was very far from prudish, but had a more circumspect way of dealing with the matter. Still, it was at least obvious that he had not inadvertently stumbled into what Americans liked to call a "mine field."
"I am still concerned, Michael." He forced himself to be honest. "Mainly, I will admit, simply because I am puzzled. Being puzzled tends to make me very suspicious."
Mike smiled crookedly. "There are times I think you are the only fully functional paranoid I know. 'Francisco Nasi' and 'puzzled' is a contradiction in terms; so, on the rare occasions it happens, you immediately suspect the universe of having foul designs."
Nasi chuckled. "Something like that."
Mike rose from his chair and moved to a nearby window. "I think what we're seeing here is just deja vu all over again," he mused. "Do you know much about grief, Francisco? Personally, I mean."
Nasi was having a hard time following Mike's thoughts, but knew from experience that they were headed somewhere. Eventually, even somewhere coherent. "Ah . . . no. Not really. My parents are both still alive and healthy, as are my brothers and sisters. At last report, anyway. A cousin, three years ago, who died in childbirth. But I cannot say I was personally close to her."
When Stearns spoke again, his tone was a bit harsh. "I have quite a bit of experience with it. More than I wish I did, although I think it's probably been good for me in the long run. Emphasis on 'long.' "
"Yes. Your father."
"I wasn't thinking about him at the moment, actually." Mike turned his head toward Nasi. Not looking at him, just showing a three-quarter profile. "Did you ever wonder why I went to Los Angeles? And then left?"
That had all happened long before Nasi had met Mike Stearns. Long before the Ring of Fire, in fact. "Ah. No."
Stearns nodded. "Her name was Kathleen Michael. We used to joke about the coincidence. Kathleen insisted we should name our first kid Michael Michael-Stearns, if he was a boy. Claimed it was her simple feminist duty."
The smile that came to his face was one that Francisco had never seen before. Impossible to analyze; even to describe.
"I met her in Clarksburg, while she was out here visiting distant relatives. This led to that—I even wrote letters, and was that a miracle—and eventually I moved out there. I couldn't in good conscience ask her to move here, seeing as how she had a real career under way and I had the mines, at best. Lawyer, no less, and was that another miracle. Except I could never figure out which way it went—a miracle that I fell in love with a lawyer, or that she'd fall in love with me?"
He was silent for a time, that peculiar smile never leaving his face. "It was the best two years of my life, until I met Becky. She never minded at all that I mostly scraped up work on the docks. Even came to my prize fights, until I finally had the good sense to quit, although she was after me the whole time to give it up. But she always made it a point, at those damn lawyer cocktail parties I hated, to brag to her colleagues about my latest victory. That was Kathleen's way of saying 'this is my man; if you don't like it, tough.' She was the most junior lawyer in the firm, too." There was another long silence. "God, I loved that woman."
Francisco cleared his throat. "You were never married?"
The smile shaded into something more familiar; that wry little twist that Francisco had come to know so well. Mike Stearns had a very fine sense of irony; perhaps the best Nasi had ever encountered.
"This was LA, Francisco, not a small town in West Virginia. Nobody worried too much about such things. The only reason we eventually decided to get married was because Kathleen was starting to get worried about my folks' opinion."
The smile faded away. "She was on her way up to Fresno to tell her own family about our decision when it happened. One of those sudden thick fogs that come into the San Joaquin valley. Kathleen always drove too fast, and she had a bad habit of tailgating. It was a twenty-car pileup and hers was the third car in it. Sandwiched by trucks, front and back."
He took a long, long breath. "The only comfort I ever had was that at least it was quick. She probably never really even knew what was happening."
Another long, long breath. When he spoke again, the voice was almost a sheer rasp. "You have no idea what it does to a human heart to be suddenly ripped in half, Francisco. You really don't, until and unless it happens to you."
For the first time since he'd risen from the chair, Mike looked at Nasi directly. "Grief is weird, Francisco. It's like a drug, really, after an operation. You need it desperately to handle the pain, but it can become its own addiction. You've got to get rid of it, eventually. And that's the dangerous time. I think that's the reason so many societies prescribe a fixed and formal period of mourning. Probably a good idea, to tell you the truth. Because you can wind up doing the screwiest things to start draining it off."
To Nasi's genuine amazement, there came a cheerful little laugh. "And that's why I left Los Angeles. Not because of Kathleen's death—that had happened almost a year earlier. It was because my screwy way of dealing with it was a woman named Linda Thompson. Linda LaLane, to use her stage name. Who, to this day, I think may have been the screwiest woman in the entire LA basin, which pretty much defines 'screwy' to begin with. Three months of that and I was finally ready to come home. Everybody thinks I came back because of my dad's accident—and I saw no reason to correct the assumption, since I figured the less said about Linda LaLane the better—but the truth is that I'd made the decision a week earlier anyway. I'd already given notice to the landlord and was half-packed when I got the news about my father."
Moving easily, now, he slid himself back into his chair. Laced his fingers together, leaned forward on his desk, and gazed upon Francisco serenely. "Does any of that make sense?"
Francisco nodded. "You fear that this Sanchez is Sharon Nichols'—ah—Linda Thompson."
Mike grimaced. "Fer chrissake, Francisco, how can anybody be that dumb? Sharon's . . . what, now? Twenty-four? Pretty close to what I was, at the time. Except she spent her what they call 'formative years' doing sensible and socially useful stuff right down the line—I leave aside some business with a jackass named Leroy that James is occasionally known to still grumble about; but that only lasted a year anyway before she booted the bum out the door; quite literally, the way James brags about it—whereas I spent those years trying to become the best head-basher in my weight division. You see what I mean?"
Nasi was by now completely baffled. "Ah. No. I don't."
Mike rolled his eyes. "It's so frickin' obvious. I didn't say that every relationship a person finds to handle their grief is screwy. I just said mine was. Sharon Nichols is not me. At a rough guess—when I was that age, anyway—the woman's got more good sense in her big toe that I had all put together."
He unlaced his hands and tapped the folder that contained all the files on the Galileo affair. "Look at the age, Francisco. That's the key to it. I picked a woman who had to use a fake driver's license in order to be a go-go dancer in a place that served liquor. Sanchez is pushing sixty."
"Seeking maturity, you mean. Wisdom."
Again, Mike rolled his eyes. "How can a man as smart as you be this dumb about some things?"
He issued a majestically sarcastic snort. "Wisdom? Francisco—you have read the reports, right?—we're talking about a Catalan swordsman who's spent most of his adult life in the service of Spain's most notorious diplomatic intriguer. If that's your definition of mature wisdom, I shudder to think what you'd call 'youthful folly.' I leave aside the fact that the reason the man is lying in Sharon's bed in the first place is because at the age of fifty-whatever he thought getting into a sword fight outnumbered six-to-one was a perfectly reasonable proposition. And I though Linda was crazy!"
Francisco stared him. Eventually, he realized his mind was a complete blank.
"My mind is a complete blank." He stared out the window. "I'm not sure that's ever happened before."
"Do you some good, masterspy. All right, then, listen to the old wise man. The oldest and wisest one you've got, anyway, when it comes to stuff like this. Which, all false modesty aside, I am damn good at."
That was certainly true. Francisco had understood for some time that a large part of Mike Stearns' superb political skill was that the man had an uncanny knack for understanding the human mind. Even more, the human heart.
"It's the challenge that matters, Francisco. It's got nothing to do with wisdom or maturity. Grief will roll over those like an APC over an anthill. I challenged my grief by picking a woman, who, on the best day of her life, couldn't have reached up high enough to shine Kathleen Michael's shoes. Sharon . . ."
His fingers idly stroked the folder. "Oh, I think something very different is happening down there in Venice. I think she stumbled, quite by accident, across a man who—as different as he might be—is something of a match for Hans Richter. And had enough sense to recognize it, despite the lines on his face. Even despite her own grief."
That wry smile came back. "He won't live all that long, of course. But, deep in her heart, I don't think Sharon really thought Hans would either. She just didn't ultimately care. Well, not that exactly. She cared, certainly. It's just that she's the sort of person who will always choose quality over quantity, whatever the cost."
Finally, it all came into focus. If Nasi did not have Mike's intuitive grasp of these things, he had made good the lack—to an extent, at least—by his extensive study of literature. That of the west, as well as his own culture.
"Ah." He leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "How odd. She is indeed a very sensible and levelheaded young woman. Who would have thought, beneath that deceptive surface, lurked the soul of Achilles?"
Stearns was looking very smug. "Besides you, I mean," Francisco added sourly.
"Oh, I imagine her father won't be that surprised. He'll have a fit, of course. I think James does that mostly so he can brag later about how she told him to take a hike if he didn't like it."
Nasi still had some lingering doubts. Hesitations, at least. "It remains a very delicate situation, Michael. Politically, I mean. Dangerous, too. I grant you, the Achilles of the world, whatever their other flaws, are not given to treason. Still—the man is, by all accounts, as good an intriguer as he is a swordsman—"
Mike hauled out his wallet and extracted from it a twenty-dollar bill. He took a moment to admire the portrait. "God, there are times I really like that old hippie." Then, slapped the bill down on the table.
"My money's on Sharon, Francisco. I'll give you ten-to-one odds. No, make that twenty. Put up or shut up. Match it with a dollar."
Francisco eyed the bill. The cost was not the issue, of course. Nasi was wealthier than Mike Stearns by at least two orders of magnitude. He could have reversed the odds and still paid his losses out of what amounted to pocket change.
He had, exactly once, taken Mike Stearns up on a bet. The memory still festered.
"Pass."
"Thought so." Mike scooped up the bill and returned it to his wallet. "Now. What's happening in Bohemia?"
When Sharon came into Ruy's room, she saw that he was reading Herman Melville's Moby Dick. The copy belonged to Conrad Ursinus, who'd purchased it simply because he thought that a USE naval officer should probably be familiar with a classic American sea story.
Conrad hadn't made it through more than the first thirty pages. He'd been more than willing to lend it to Sanchez. Who, for his part—to Sharon's certain knowledge—was now rereading it for the third time in as many weeks.
Sharon hadn't really been that surprised to discover that Sanchez was a voracious reader. But she did find that his tastes could be . . . eccentric.
"What is so fascinating about that novel, anyway?" she demanded. "I barely managed to get through it in college—and wouldn't have, if I hadn't had a test coming."
Sanchez didn't look up from his reading. "Americans. Ha! The most—what is that word you used the other day? referring to me?—'schizophrenic,' I believe. Yes, the most cross-headed people in existence. What other nation could produce such a book and then misunderstand it completely?"
When he finished the paragraph, he lowered the book and gave Sharon a sly little smile. "The most magnificent hero in all of literature, matched only by those of Cervantes and Homer."
Thus spake Sanchez.
Sharon shook her head. "How any man in his right mind could think Captain Ahab—"
"Ahab? Who spoke of that pathetic creature? Ahab is simply the literary foil. A mere device." Ruy closed the book—carefully keeping his place with a finger—and held up the cover for Sharon to see.
"Did the author need to be more obvious? Look at the title, woman! It's the whale, the whale."
On some other day, Sharon might have laughed. On this one, her purpose was too solemn. She had spent three days bringing herself to this point.
"What is the traditional period of mourning in Catalonia?" she asked abruptly. "For a widow, I mean."
Sanchez studied her for a moment. "It varies, from place to place. Most often—my village as well—it is a year and a day."
Sharon nodded. "October 8, then. Ask me your question again on that day. I will probably not have the answer, Ruy. But at least I will be able to think about it. Really think about it. I just can't, right now. I've tried, but . . . I don't trust any of the responses I get. They seem to veer all over place, from one hour to the next."
Which, they certainly did. Right now, looking at the man, the response was veering toward sheer passion. Ruy Sanchez could look very, very good, lying in a bed. Especially these days, when his wound had healed well enough to allow him to sit erect. She couldn't imagine, any longer, how she had ever thought of him as Feelthy Sanchez. All she usually saw now were the broad shoulders, eyes younger than springtime in a well-lined face—she'd come to know every line, too—and, perhaps most of all, that seemingly endless and antic wit.
Other days, true, it was all Sharon could do not to throw him out of it. But, even then, the cause was never disgust or anger. Just that Ruy could be the most exasperating man she'd ever known.
What bothered her most of all was not even the wild swings in her mood. It was that she had not failed to notice that the swings were beginning to develop a pattern. An hour, perhaps, wishing that Sanchez was out of the bed. Two hours—more like three, lately—wishing she were in it with him.
She didn't trust any of it. Regarded it all with deep suspicion. Simultaneously faithless to Hans and unfair to Ruy. Not to mention, stupid for her.
"I need structure," she said. "Rules. Or I think I'll go crazy."
"No danger of that," Ruy said firmly. "Do something crazy, yes; go crazy, no." The Catalan stroked his mustache. "Trust me on this matter, young maiden. I am an expert on the distinction."
"I am not a maiden. Haven't been, since I was seventeen."
Sanchez gave the ceiling a long-suffering look. "Leave it to me to fall in love with an imbecile. What else could she be, to confuse Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz with a callow stripling?"
The look became a glare. "Not even that! Even as a callow stripling, Ruy Sanchez understood the proper place of the hymen in God's scheme of things. It was obvious. Higher than the feet, lower than the woman."
When he brought his eyes down—damn the man!—they were twinkling again. "Sharon Nichols, as a crone of eighty, with a veritable horde of children and grandchildren gathered about, you will still think like a maiden. And, thus, will be one." He hefted the thick novel. "If you took the time to study this book, you would understand. What is Moby Dick, but the best man of the day?"
Fortunately, the mood swing had brought Sharon abruptly to her own center. She advanced upon Sanchez, smiling serenely.
"It occurs to me that a man of your advanced age needs to be inspected regularly for the first signs of colon cancer." She described for him, in some detail, the traditional medical procedure to do so.
Ruy's eyes were wide, his cheeks flushed. "You wouldn't!"
An instant later, the cheeks were pale. "You would!"
To her surprise, Sharon heard a little laugh coming from behind her. Turning, she saw that Cardinal Bedmar was sitting in a chair in the corner. She was not surprised to see him, since he came to visit Ruy quite often. But she was still somewhat chagrined that she hadn't thought to check when she came in the door. She'd been that preoccupied.
Perhaps it was the residue of the mood swing, but she decided that she was well centered enough to handle that problem also.
"And how long must I wait for you to ask me your question, Your Eminence? I gave Ruy a date. Give me yours."
Bedmar frowned. "I do not—"
"Cut it out. How long will you continue to mourn the passing glory of Spain?"
The cardinal looked away. After a moment, he murmured: "I thought . . . with the ambassador gone—even Signor Stone, now, I understand . . ."
"Yeah, that's right. Tom Stone—boy, can he be a doofus—finally realized he made a lot better father than a diplomat. So, six days ago, he and Madga packed up and headed for Rome to see what's happening with their kids. That leaves me in charge. So give me a date, Your Eminence."
She cocked her head a little. "How old are you, by the way? Older than Ruy, I know. Are you aware that the risk of colon cancer increases dramatically after the age of fifty? Annual inspections are strongly recommended. When did you have your last one? Let me rephrase that. When did you have your first one?" She waited maybe three seconds. "Right. Never. No sweat."
Sharon glanced at the corner where she kept medical supplies in a chest. "I even have a few latex gloves in there, handy as could be. Each one of which, these days, is worth its weight in gold—and worth a hell of a lot more than a so-called diplomat who goofs off on the job."
Bedmar's eyes were even wider than Ruy's had been. "I'm a cardinal of the Church!"
"And before that a marquis. I know. Ask me if I care. Better yet, let me tell you what do I care about. I am a nurse, Your Eminence. I am not a soldier, I am not a diplomat. Soldiers destroy people when diplomats tell them to. Nurses are the ones who try to put together what they can afterward. I'd like to get about my job, which, judging from all reports from the war front, is going to be a monster. But I can't even start—not really—until the war ends. And even then it won't do much good if the war doesn't produce a good peace. Which is what you're supposed to be doing. Instead of sawing away at the violins, playing a sorrowful tune. Badly. You're not a musician."
From the bed, Sanchez spoke.
"Do it, Alphonso. Do it now. We have talked about it enough."
It was the only time Sharon had ever heard Ruy use the cardinal's first name. She looked over and saw that Sanchez was closing the book. Firmly, without leaving a finger behind. "How did I put it, just yesterday?" he mused. " 'How many barrels of oil will thy melancholy bring thee in Nantucket market?' "
The cardinal sniffed. "Don't give yourself literary airs in front of me, you wretched Catalan peasant. I am no maiden and never thought like one. You didn't say 'Nantucket,' wherever that is. You said 'Amsterdam.' "
"Ah. So I did." Sanchez grinned. "Always practical, my slogan!" He eyed Sharon uncertainly. "Well. Perhaps not in my choice of women."
But the uncertainty was feigned. Not even Ruy Sanchez was that good an actor.
"October 8," Sharon told him softly. Then, bringing her eyes back to the cardinal, she spoke not softly at all. "You, I will expect to see downstairs within the hour."
The following day, when Nasi slid a new file in front of Mike Stearns, he murmured: "Came in on the radio last night. Good thing I didn't take your bet."
Mike scanned the file quickly. "Boil it down for me, Francisco. Your best shot."
"Well, he won't spy for us. Certainly not regarding military affairs."
"Don't want a spy," Mike grunted. "Got plenty of those already. And I leave the soldiering to Gustav Adolf and Lennart Torstensson and John Chandler Simpson, who've forgotten more about it than I'll ever learn. It's their job to win the war. My job, to win the peace."
He cocked an eye at Nasi. Then, seeing the great smile spreading, nodded his head and went back to studying the report.
"What I think, too. How soon can Bedmar get back to the Netherlands?"
"Not immediately. He'll need to find a plausible excuse to leave Venice. Then there's the travel time itself. That's a bit tricky, between his age and the risks of passing through France."
"France, baloney. Let's smuggle him right through our own territory. Who's the best we've got for that, with Harry Lefferts not available?"
Nasi paused, estimating. "Probably Klaus Grünwald, for something like this."
Decisively, Mike closed the file and slid it toward Nasi. "Set it up, Francisco. Let's get him back right next to the cardinal-infante's ear as fast as we can."
Francisco didn't pick up the file immediately. "Did you see the personal note from Sharon? At the end."
Mike hadn't spotted the note. He pulled back the file and reopened it. Within seconds, had found the note. Not many seconds later, closed the file again.
"Sure. Anything to please such a charming young lady. Tell him he's got to leave Sanchez behind. Invent some kind of plausible reason if he squawks. Sweeten the pot, somehow, if you think he needs an incentive."
Nasi picked up the file, smiling. "Oh, I doubt that. I suspect the young lady has already given the cardinal an incentive to agree."