The Empire of Glass - Andy Lane [34]
"You seem distracted, my boy," the Doctor said, spearing an olive with his knife. "Is there something you want to tell us?"
Steven glanced up and flushed guiltily. His eyes flickered towards Galileo. "No, I... What I mean is... "
The Doctor's steely gaze fastened on Steven. "We have all had strange experiences since we arrived here in Venice," he chided.
"Vicki and I were almost abducted by..." He paused, and coughed.
"By persons in disguise, and Vicki has had a dream that turns out to have been more than a dream. When this is added to the invitation we received, well, it makes one think, does it not?" He leaned forward. "If you have anything to add, and I would be surprised if you didn't, then I suggest you add it now. The more we know about whatever is happening here, the better off we will be!"
Steven opened his mouth to answer, but Galileo beat him to it.
"Don't blame your friend, Doctor," he said. "I am the one he is protecting." He looked from the Doctor to Vicki and back again.
"But before I begin, I assure you that I am blameless in every way."
The Doctor nodded. "I will accept that assurance - for the moment."
"Very well." Galileo took a deep breath. "The first 'occurrence' as you put it was... No, let me tell you about the second one. I will demonstrate the first after dessert. The second was when my wine was poisoned in a nearby tavern."
"How do you know it was poisoned?" the Doctor queried sharply.
"Because when I threw it into the face of some oaf who insulted me, he died of poisoning," Galileo replied.
"Seems fairly convincing to me," Steven murmured to Vicki.
"The third occurrence," Galileo continued, "was when your friend Steven and I discovered a dead body not far from here."
"Poisoned?" Vicki asked.
"No, my dear lady," Galileo replied with a smile, "stabbed through the heart with a long, thin blade. A rapier, perhaps, although the ribs were crushed, indicating that the blow was a forceful one."
"Did you know either of the murdered men?" the Doctor asked.
"The first, no. The second, yes." Galileo waved a hand at the shadowy room around him. "He was the owner of this fine house, and thus my landlord."
"To be at the scene of one murder can be accounted a misfortune," the Doctor said with a slight smile. "To be at the scene of two begins to look like carelessness. Do you have any suspects?"
"For the first death - the poisoning?" Galileo shrugged. "Only the man who bought me the wine. He was an Englishman with long grey hair and a deep scar running down the side of his face -"
Steven, who had just picked up his flagon of wine, suddenly jerked in his chair, spilling wine over his lap.
"Sorry," he muttered. "Sudden chill."
"- Although I suspect that he may have been employed by my enemies, of whom I have many." Galileo smiled, rather proudly.
"Not only among my contemporaries at the University of Padua, but also among the wider philosophical community. I have proved the valued theorems of many distinguished thinkers to be less worthy of consideration than the maunderings of a village idiot, and they do not thank me for it. I think it would be fair to say that I have many enemies."
"You surprise me," the Doctor murmured. "Is there any more of this fine wine, by the by?"
The crickets were rasping in the bushes and the grass as Cardinal Roberto Bellarmine's coach halted. Disturbed, Bellarmine paused in his reading of the Bible and glanced out of the window. Ahead of him the soldiers were conferring and examining a map. The moon glittered on the waters of the Adriatic and, from their position on top of the rolling hills that swept down toward the shore, Cardinal Bellarmine could just make out the dark bulk of Venice on the horizon, pinpricked with the red spots of torches. To Venice's left the island of Murano lay sleepily: to its right the long line of the Lido separated the lagoon from the sea. Down near the beach, Bellarmine could see a ramshackle collection of huts and, a few yards into the water, the bobbing hulls