The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [31]
Cardinal Roberto Francesco Romolo Bellarmine leaned out of the carriage window, and winced as a pang of pain shot through his shoulder. The salt in the air and the chill of the wind was causing his arthritis to play up. He offered a quick prayer, not for relief from the pain but for the strength to withstand it. It was, after all, God's way of reminding him that he was not indispensable to the Church, no matter what the Pope might think.
Ahead, he saw the leader of the party of soldiers that had been detailed to accompany him conferring with one of his troops. "What causes this wait?" the man shouted with some asperity. He was hoping to have arrived by now, by God's grace, and the delay was making him irritable.
The commander of the party of soldiers pulled on the reins of his horse and trotted back to the coach. "Your Eminence," he said, bowing as best he could on horseback, "we are attempting to determine which of the paths is the safest method by which to convey you to your destination. There are pirates and Turks to consider, and -"
"Fie on the safest," Bellarmine muttered, "just choose the fastest."
He dismissed the soldier with a curt nod, and gazed across the patchy landscape of partial dunes and salt sea grasses. Above him gulls wheeled, calling to each other in a harsh tongue. He could smell the sea. If he was where he thought he was then the town of Chioggia lay somewhere to his right, out on the edge of a promontory of land. The path that continued onwards must skirt the edge of the lagoon and then curve northwards, towards Mestre and Venice. Somewhere along the coast he would be able to charter a boat to take them all to the city. A day or two to complete his work, and then he could return to Rome, and civilization.
Venice. He laughed aloud, making two of the soldiers turn to see what the noise was. Would it be too much to regard Venice as the sanctuary of Satan? Friar Sarpi's writings could certainly tear the Church apart, if he were allowed to continue, and if everything he had heard about Galileo's spyglass was true then the ghost of Giordano Bruno might haunt them still. Such danger, concentrated in one place. Were they really the tools of the Devil, or just foolish men who were ignorant of the forces they meddled with?
Was there a difference?
His thoughts preoccupied by theological speculation, Cardinal Bellarmine didn't even notice when the coach started to move again, taking him foot by laborious foot closer to Venice.
CHAPTER SIX
Galileo Galilei reached across the vegetable stall and rooted amongst the yellow peppers. "This!" he said, pulling one out and waving it at the stall's proprietor, "is a ripe pepper. This," and he waved the one that he had been given moments before, "is over-
ripe. Even a dolt such as yourself must be able to tell the difference."
The stall's proprietor sighed. "Venetian peppers always look like that," she said. "And they taste better that way. Everyone knows that."
"Then everyone is foolish," Galileo snapped. "I will take five more like this." He waved the ripe pepper at her, just in case she decided to miss the point. "And I will risk the taste."
The proprietor shrugged, and raised her eyebrows at her other customers. As he watched her select more peppers that matched the one he had, he shook his head. Thieves! Venice was populated with thieves! Back home in Padua he would have left his cook to choose the food for a meal such as the one he had invited Steven and his friends to that night, but he didn't trust the cook he had hired that morning. All Venetians were in collusion to defraud the rest of the world: everyone knew that. He would choose the food, and present it to the cook as an accomplished fact.
He shuddered, remembering that the cleaners he had hired would be cleaning and airing the rented house even as he wasted his time wandering around the market. He just hoped that they wouldn't disturb any of his manuscripts. Or his spyglass.