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, came 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."

He swiveled his head and gave his daughter an intense scrutiny. "Intense," as in Marcoli-intense.

Then, seemingly satisfied, Marcoli looked back at Frank. "I give my permission. I will trust you not to take advantage of the situation until you can find the time and place for a wedding. I would not see my daughter dishonored."

"My word on it, sir."

Massimo had awakened, apparently, somewhere in the middle of all this. Frank heard him issue a derisive snort.

"You are mad, cousin. Look at them! As well command water not to run downhill."

Marcoli glared at his cousin. Massimo was now levering himself upright on his bed. "Still," he said, "I agree with the decision itself. We must be decisive at all times-here above all others. Better to risk-"

Massimo gave Marcoli a glare of his own. "-something which has been known to happen in this family-my own sister! Giovanna's mother! two days before the wedding! don't try to pretend!-"

Antonio Marcoli flushed and looked away. His eyes carefully avoided his daughter's.

"-without any noticeable catastrophe, I would point out." Massimo cleared his throat. "Better that than to fail in saving our great Italian savant. The young man here-fine young man, yes, I fully agree-will do far better if he can concentrate on the task without worrying about what might have happened to his betrothed."

Massimo was now sitting fully upright and, concussion or no concussion, was gesticulating with his usual intellectual's enthusiasm. "Besides-I am the theoretician here, don't forget-I suspect we need to modify our program on this matter in any event."

He came to an abrupt halt, eyeing Frank and then Giovanna. "After these two impressionable youngsters have departed, however."

"Leaving right now," Frank announced. He extended his hand. "Giovanna?"

She skipped to her feet. "Coming!"

"You're sure?" Tom Stone demanded. "I mean, like, positive? They didn't just, you know, maybe go off on a long picnic or something?"