Lennox was shaking his head before Tom had finished the sentence.

"Goan," said Lennox, in a tone lugubrious even for him. "I found yon papist drunkard bemoanin't the lack ae 'em."

Sharon felt a chill run down her spine. This was too much. Buckley dead, Ruy fighting for his life, and now Lennox had brought Heinzerling in to report that all three of the Stone boys had definitely vanished. And, more to the point, that they had discovered several people who'd seen them leaving the city in the company of the Marcolis.

That had been the last, lingering hope-that, maybe, the bizarre "evidence" of a plot against the pope's life which they'd found in the Marcoli house had been entirely faked by Ducos' agents.

Sharon didn't have any doubt at all that the so-called evidence about a plot to kill the pope was fraudulent. No matter how scrambled his brains might be by hormones, she knew Frank Stone well enough to know that he'd never have agreed to something like that. But the other business . . . about rescuing Galileo . . .

It was all she could do not to groan out loud. When she'd passed on the information to Ruy just an hour ago, he'd immediately confirmed her own private assessment.

"Oh, yes," the Catalan had said confidently. "It all makes sense, Sharon. The business about assassinating the pope is nonsense, of course. But a rescue of Galileo? That would be exactly the sort of idiot scheme that a man like Marcoli would develop-and which would seem attractive enough to naive boys. Very romantic. It also explains Ducos' involvement-as well as his murder of Buckley. He would plant evidence trying to implicate them in a much worse design, in order to embarrass your embassy still further, increase the Venetians' ties to the French, and drive a wedge between Paris and the Vatican. But, then, he had to murder Buckley to keep Buckley-the one man everyone would believe, in this matter-from being able to deny it."

Lennox had had the first report from one of his sergeants, the Catholic one named Southworth, that there had definitely been something afoot in Venice among the Committee crowd. The urchin Benito was not the only one, apparently, before whom the Marcolis had carelessly prattled. Lennox had gone looking for Heinzerling then, to ask him if there was anything he was mindful of. When he found Heinzerling, he had practically taken the Jesuit by the scruff of the neck to make his report.

"Gus?" Stoner asked.

"Ja," Heinzerling said, his voice croakier even than usual. "It is that we had drinks-Ron Stone and Fabrizio Marcoli and myself-in the Casino dei Tre Radi, several days ago, and there were more drinks at another Casino whose name I forget. It is Carnivale, ja?"

Stoner nodded. "Go on."

"There was discussion of the Galileo book, which has been recalled recently by the Inquisition." Heinzerling stopped and rubbed his forehead. "It is there that I began to debate with Monsignor-I cannot remember his name-but he is now the state theologian at Venice."

"He was at the casino, consorting with Committee members?" Sharon was a bit intrigued. The monsignor in question was a notorious firebrand who had spoken out for Galileo. The thought of him squaring off with Heinzerling's drunken eloquence was-entertaining, she realized, but not relevant. And the issue of what a senior theologian was doing in a casino knocking down drinks with the likes of Ron Stone and Fabrizio Marcoli could also abide. "Never mind that," she said before Heinzerling could respond, "when did you realize the boys were missing?"

Heinzerling bit his lower lip and sighed deeply. The glum expression made his muttonchop whiskers bristle, reinforcing the impression he gave of being a prize boar in a clerical outfit. "Well. Not until today, for a certainty-but I should have seen it coming then. The problem is that I was preoccupied. The monsignor and I came to words over the proposition of whether summa fideei should be expressed through-"

Sharon held up a hand. Gus' capability for theological excursion was vast, creative and best stopped before it started if there was any urgent secular business at hand. "What should you 'have seen coming'?"

"Galileo." Gus's tone managed to grow a notch gloomier. He looked to Sharon like he was on the verge of tears. "They would rescue him, I am now sure of it."

Stoner's voice was soft, although he sounded like he was on the verge of shouting. "Rescue," he said. "Rescue." And then a long pause. "The Inquisition have got him, then?"

Heinzerling gave a little groan, by way of running up to coherent speech. "The Inquisition have had him since last year," he said. "He was ordered not to travel or to print further copies of his latest book, which is about the motion of the Earth. The news is that he is recovered the illness by which the Inquisition excused him travel to Rome, and is now going there under guard. Some stories say he is in irons. I do not believe that myself but-"

He was interrupted by the door banging open. "Where are they gone?" shouted Magda as she swept in. She was flushed and looked-dangerous. She was a young woman, slender and usually dignified, grave even, in her manner. Spitting fury was not a state Sharon had ever seen her in. Even Magda's anger at the boor Falier had been moderate in comparison.

There was this to be said for Hanni's tendency to haul off and belt her husband upside the head-she could cool off fairly quickly when she had vented her rage and never quite seemed to be unhappy for long. Sharon began to wish one or another of the Stones would cut loose properly at Gus-

And Magda did. She paused hardly a moment before letting rip. Fully five minutes of sustained invective in two languages-no, three, it sounded like there had been some Latin in there.

"And you!" she said, rounding on Lennox. "You will send men! All your men if you have to! You will get them back!"

Lennox joined Heinzerling in the group cringe that looked set to take in every man in the room. "Aye. I'll do that, right enough. I'll take yon papist, wit' y'r permission?"

It was unclear exactly who was being asked for permission. Sharon glanced at Stoner. He seemed in too much of daze to think clearly.

Sharon decided her temporary ambassador status was still operating. "Yes, certainly. Will you leave some of the guard?"

"Aye. Lieutenant Taggart will hae command of't. Young Trumble I'll take wit me-'e can be the second, for his education. No tellin' what mischief the lad would get into if left behind. Sergeant Southworth and four lads will come wi' me too. Sergeant Dalziel will have the running of the guard here, since he's the senior man."

"Why Southworth?" Sharon asked. The young English sergeant seemed to be something of an outsider among the mostly Scots troops, an infantryman who had joined the Marines and been assigned to the wholly anomalous Marine Cavalry Troop.

"He's a friend o' Frank Stone, to start wit'. 'At may coom in handy. Beyond that, Aidan's a guid lad, right enough, f'r a sassenach, an' wi' the lads short-handed I want an old hand here and Dalziel's that. Besides, if yon drunkard"-he nodded toward Heinzerling-"takes to his cups, Southworth has the heathen talk o' these parts better than any other man w'hae."

Sharon nodded. For all Lennox talked a bigoted line, he was actually a lot less prejudiced than most men she knew.

Lennox snapped a salute. "Richt. C'mon Father Heinzerling, ye sot of a Jesuit. Ye're to come and lead us tae Rome or wherever."

"Wait a minute," Sharon said. She had a sudden nightmare vision of Lennox and Heinzerling blundering about northern Italy with no real clue where they were going. "Start by going to Maestro Luzzatto. He won't be any use himself, but he can put you in touch with Giuseppe Cavriani. Tell Cavriani that I-Magda and I, rather-insist that he serve you as a guide."

Stoner stared at her. "Why would he agree to do that? He's got a business to run."

Madga snorted. Sharon just grinned. "Stoner, you really need to pay more attention to all those papers you sign. You are Cavriani's business, these days. Well, in the real world, me and Madga are. It's just disguised by this idiot business-and where's Gloria Steinem when you really want her?-of not accepting women as signatories on commercial deals. The point is, you are now one of the richest men in Italy."

"I am?"

"Yup. And she and I"-Sharon pointed a finger at Magda-"are two of the richest women. She because she's your wife, and me because I don't do anything in business without getting a cut. My father's a bit oblivious to these things, but my momma didn't raise no fools."

Stoner looked back and forth between them. "You are?"

"Are what? Rich, or a fool? Yes to the first, no to the second. But to get back to the point, Crazy Giuseppe is by now easily the most successful Cavriani on record. The one thing he will not want to do is tick off his meal ticket. If we tell him to go, he'll go. Knowing Giuseppe, he'll even go cheerfully. They don't call him Crazy for nothing."

"T'will lose us time," Lennox objected. "Be a full day afore we c'n nab yon swindler and muscle him along."

Sharon managed not to sneer. Barely. "Big deal. You lose a day at the beginning-instead of losing two weeks getting lost. And what's a day? You're tracking the Marcolis, Captain. By all accounts, their progress across Italy will look like Buster Keaton building a sailboat."

That got a round of laughs. Anyone who lived in Grantville for any length of time became a Buster Keaton aficionado. For some reason, Keaton's brand of silent slapstick comedy struck a chord with down-timers that Charlie Chaplin rarely did.

"True enough," Lennox grunted. He gave Heinzerling a glance. "Let's be off, then."

The two big men went out, grimly silent.

"Uh," said Stoner, "shouldn't they be going with more men?"

"I'm sure Captain Lennox knows best how to organize a chase," said Sharon.

"He had better," said Magda. "He had better."

For his sake, Sharon hoped he did.

Part V:

May, 1634

Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,