“So you need a…an ‘internal skeleton’ to help it keep its shape.”
“Right. In this case, you don’t need more than a keel and a nose-cone-sort of like a spine with an underslung umbrella at the front.”
“I see. And you would know how to make this?”
“Why, sure. And Kelly will have some good tips for you, too. Better, maybe.”
“This is most helpful: please, let me compensate you for your advice.”
“You already do compensate me for my advice. Damn, your money is helping me far more than my advice is helping you.”
Miro smiled as he opened his purse. “Trust me when I insist that you are quite mistaken in that assumption, Mr. Pridmore; quite mistaken, indeed.”
March 1635
Despite the bitter wind that drove the cold rain sideways into every pedestrian’s face, Francisco Nasi waved broadly at Miro and crossed the street toward him.
Miro waved back and smiled. He had not seen much of Nasi over the last five months. Mike Stearns’-and Ed Piazza’s-spymaster extraordinaire was usually in Magdeburg, often closeted for marathon meetings, and sometimes “traveling on business” to places about which only one thing was known: they were far away from Grantville. In consequence, Miro had had few opportunities to converse with Nasi again-and whenever he did so, Miro sensed- what? A shadow of guilt? A hint of regret?
Miro took Francisco’s extended hand, noted the same slightly melancholy smile. “How are you, Don Francisco?”
“I’m freezing, so my senses still function. And you, Don Estuban?” Nasi’s use of his full, correct title was code, but its message was quite clear: Nasi had learned that Miro’s Venetian funds had finally arrived, were more considerable than even he had guessed, and-most importantly-were the proof positive that the xueta was exactly who he had claimed to be almost eight months earlier.
“I am well enough, Don Francisco. And my project is nearing completion.” As if you didn’t already know that.
“Excellent. But it must be very absorbing. We don’t see much of you in town.”
“But how would you know if I’m in town, Don Francisco? Your presence here seems much rarer than mine.”
“ Touche. But I have much family here, and they are my eyes and ears. On the streets, in the restaurants, elsewhere-”
Elsewhere. By which you mean, “the synagogue.”
Nasi looked up the street at nothing in particular. “I have regretted that the circumstances of your arrival made it impossible to-to welcome you, as was proper. As is traditional.”
Miro proferred a small bow. “You had no choice, Don Francisco. Your official responsibilities must trump all other considerations.”
“Yes. But only for as long as they must.” Nasi put out his hand to say farewell, opened his mouth, waited a long moment before speaking. “You have no family here. And a seder alone is no seder at all.” Then Nasi smiled faintly, released Miro’s hand, and, hunching over, hurried off into the cold.
Miro looked after him: it had not been, strictly speaking, an invitation. But that would no doubt change when Estuban Miro made his appearance in the almost-repaired synagogue this coming Shabbat.
He trusted that the spitting rain hid any other moisture that might have made his eyes blink so quickly. To sit and pray in a synagogue once again. To share a seder once again. To hear and speak Hebrew. To be a Jew in something other than name and memory only. To reclaim his life after nine long years.
Estuban stared up into the cold rain and felt suddenly warm, felt his soul rise with the promise of his almost- ready airship.
April 1635
Franchetti angled the props upward a bit, driving the blimp toward the ground. Then he cut the engines, and pulled hard on the lead ground line.
The forward bow of the gondola pushed into the soft loam, and the night-time noises hushed; the moon stared down, bright and indifferent.
As the rest of the Venetians swarmed the craft-affixing new lines, tossing in some ballast, opening flaps- Franchetti hopped out, followed by Bolzano, his beefy assistant in all things. “I am an aviator!” Franchetti cried. “I have flown like the birds!”
Miro smiled. “Excellent work, Franchetti-and you must not breathe a word of it.”
“But Don Estuban-”
“This is as we agreed, Franchetti. Would you take away Signor Pridmore’s joy at being the ‘first’ to fly in a balloon? After all he has done to help us build the Swordfish?”
Franchetti looked like a truant child. “No, you are right, Don Estuban-but did we not finish first? Long before him? And look at her! Is she not beautiful?”
Now sagging slightly in the moonlight, her abbreviated ribs showing, Miro thought the airship looked more akin to an emaciated maggot. “She is beautiful indeed, Franchetti-and I promise, in the future, you will be able to tell everyone that you were the first test pilot-for the next airship we build.”
Franchetti stared at him. “The next-? So we are not done? Then why did you say that this was our final week of pay?”
“Because now we change how you will be paid, Franchetti. I have been thinking that the master craftsmen who build my airships should also have the option to have part ownership in them. Of course, not all will want that. However, for those who do-”
But Franchetti was out of the gondola in a single leap and, landing with his arms around Miro, planted a sweaty kiss on each of the xueta’s well-shaven cheeks. “I will be an aviator!” he shouted loudly into the night sky.
So loudly that Miro harbored a faint worry that Marlon Pridmore might have heard-and might have lost the joy of thinking himself the first to fly one of the airships he had designed.
May 1635
Francisco Nasi’s desk was almost bare, and the contents of his “courtesy office” were now mostly in boxes. Nasi was bound to depart within a few months, and the process of relocation was already underway. But right now, his attention was very much riveted on the report in front of him. “I notice that President Piazza’s agents picked up this man Bolzano just a day after you passed word to me that we keep an eye out for him, heading south. What I’m wondering is: why?”
“Why what, Francisco?”
“Why you wanted the local authorities advised to pick him up. And how you knew he was a confidential agent for ‘other interests.’ ”
Miro shrugged. “The answer to the second is also the answer to the first. Bolzano started out as self- deprecating, unskilled illiterate, only worried about securing a salary. But during the process of constructing the Swordfish, he proved to be a quick study, dedicated, resourceful. And when I offered extended contracts with better terms to all my workers, he demurred, pleading urgent business in Padua. Nonsense. He had to return south to report to his real employers, and so had to decline the permanent position-which was wholly out of character for the role he had opted to play up here.”
“Well, you were right-although it seems he was not working directly for any government. Only a factotum for parties unnamed. But why did you recommend that President Piazza hold him in custody, Estuban?”
“Firstly, Francisco, I suggested it to you.”
“Yes-and my responsibilities here are finished. I no longer have power in this matter.”
Miro decided not to look as dubious as he might have. “Yes-that’s what all the official documents say. But it seems to me that President Piazza has asked you to, well, ‘watch over’ me this far, so I surmised that he might ask you to oversee this final related incident. Just as a means of ensuring a smooth transition, of course.”
Nasi did not blink or move for five full seconds. Then he said, almost without moving his lips: “I have
