Without the knowledge of the Library, the evil magicians of the barbaric North and East would have had it all their own way, and their warriors, disorganized as they were, would still have conquered everything now ruled by Emperor Charles Fredrik. They'd probably be storming the gates of Venice at this moment.
Still, Hypatia and Chrysostom hadn't prevailed, not completely. They weren't as ruthless as their foes within the Church, the followers of Saint Paul. If they had been, there wouldn't be the fanatical Order of Saint Paul, nor its offshoots, the Servants of the Holy Trinity and the Knights of the Holy Trinity, with their Inquisitions and their purgings.
What were you thinking? Kat asked the image of Hypatia silently. Why did you have to be so--so diplomatic and conciliatory? They wouldn't have been if they'd gotten the upper hand! You and Chrysostom would have been walled up in hermit's cells in the desert 'for the good of your souls'! And why were you so compromising with Augustine? Without him, there never would have been a Pauline creed at all.
Hypatia's painted image didn't answer, and Kat sighed. She was no theologian, and this was getting her nowhere. She needed to talk to someone older and wiser. If she could have turned the clock back, her first choice would have been Dottore Marina. For all that he'd only come twice a week, in the evenings, Dottore Marina had been the one among her her tutors who had always seemed to understand. She still remembered the fight between her mother and her grandfather about his teaching her at all.
Her grandfather had insisted. For all that it was many years ago, she could still remember what he'd bellowed. 'He is one of the Doge's own librarians! Yes, he is Magister Magi, and a Strega to boot. Saint Hypatia, woman! The child needs a bit of broadness in her education. And no one in all Venice has more broadness than Dottore Marina! Even Metropolitan Michael says he is a great scholar of Christian philosophy.'
At first she'd been a little afraid of this 'pagan' her mother had muttered about. But he'd been a good tutor, kindly and patient. He stuck out from all the rest like a beacon. He listened, for one thing. And, for another, she could use--today, in a way she hadn't needed then--the dottore's understanding of the dangerous complexities of Venetian politics.
But . . . he was gone; had been for several years. So one of the Hypatian counselors would have to do. At least she knew she could trust them to keep what she said under the Seal of Counsel. That was more than could be said of the counselors of some of the other orders.
Especially the Servants of the Holy Trinity.
She got up and left the choir stalls, returning to the rear of the church to the line of three enclosed closets where someone in need of counsel could speak with one of the siblings anonymously. She dropped the curtain across the doorway and sat down on the thin cushion over the bench inside, waiting for someone to speak to her on the other side of the scrim-covered window. Compared to the brightness outside in the church it was dim in here. Dim and cool.
She didn't have to wait for very long. A male voice, one she didn't recognize, the intonation slightly foreign, coughed, then said: 'Peace be with you, my child. How may I counsel you?'
A very good question, that. 'I'm not sure how to start, Brother,' she said, in frustration. 'It's all gone so horribly wrong!'
'You might start with what has gone wrong,' the voice replied helpfully. 'Although from the sound of your voice, I fear that you are going to tell me that it is everything.'
'It very nearly is.' She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice, but it was still there. 'But most of it is nothing I had any control over--and it's the situation now that I need advice with.'
'If it has any bearing on the present, I should like to hear it anyway.' The voice sounded patient, but Kat wondered about her own patience level. I'll sound self-pitying and whiny, I know I will. Despite that a sibling wasn't supposed to let such things color his counsel, she couldn't help feeling that it would make her look--well, unpleasantly petty.
But the counselor had asked, and you weren't supposed to hold back. Kat took a deep breath and started. She did her level best to keep the nasal complaint out of her own voice that she heard so often in her sister-in- law's.
She tried keeping things as brief as possible, but the voice interrupted gently from time to time, asking more questions about her father, her grandfather, and her own studies as a girl with a private tutor, dwelling on Dottore Marina for reasons she couldn't fathom.
Still, that segued very nicely into the current situation. 'That was why--I remembered Dottore Marina seeming so good you see--that when we needed money, we began delivering things for the Strega, and not just the Jewish community. My . . . family has always brought in some cargo that the Doge's Capi di Contrada never saw. You know, Counselor: every trader in Venetia does a little. At first it was just because of the duties I think. Then, when the Sots--I mean, the Servants of the Trinity--began to have more influence on the Doge it was to avoid possible persecution. Then Dottore Marina just vanished. . . .' She paused.
'Then?' prompted her counselor, gently.
Kat took a deep breath. 'Then the Strega I knew became very frightened and needed me to get things for them more than ever. We made more money from them. And we became more reliant on it.'
