The Dreeson Incident(2)

"I will write him," Locquifier said finally. "But I will not do any more than ask. I will not urge. Remember what he told me in Italy. 'Don't be stupid, Guillaume. Do you propose to curse every soldier who stands against us? Divert ourselves at each instant in order to punish lackeys?' I, personally, have no intention of letting him call me 'stupid' again."



Brillard shrugged. It was more than he had expected Ancelin and Ouvrard to accomplish. Michel Ducos was not a man to be pushed. Guillaume Locquifier was not a man to try.





Chapter 2





Lausanne

Switzerland



"Sandrart, what the . . . heck?" Simon Jones frowned.



"What he means is 'what the hell,' " Ron Stone interpreted. "We're supposed to be going straight home. Not taking scenic detours."



"But it's important to us." Artemisia Gentileschi started to wave her hands. "Joachim sent the messenger more than a week ago. Almost ten days ago. Telling him that if the duke agreed, he should meet us at the inn here and let us know. And Rohan has agreed."



"One more jumped-up nobleman," Jones muttered.



"Duke Henri de Rohan is the most important Protestant patron in France. Well, not in France, since he's in exile, but the most important French Protestant patron of the arts. If Joachim can possibly find a permanent position under the de Rohan/Sully-Bethune umbrella, don't you see, then he won't have to spend most of his life doing commissions for Catholics."



Artemisia's hands stopped for a moment; then started up again. "Not that I see that as a problem. Many Catholic artists work for Protestant patrons, such as the king of England, as I have done myself. And vice versa. It won't be a really major problem for Joachim, either. Even someone like Maximilian of Bavaria is inclined to make temporary exceptions to the rules when it comes to the painters and sculptors in his employ. As long as they paint exactly the subjects that he wants them to, of course. But still." Her hands flew out like two birds taking flight. "We're so close!"



"A week," Jones said. "A week, at least. Two days to get there, a day for the two of you to talk to the man, and two days back to this road. That's if he sees you right away and isn't so puffed up with his own importance that he keeps you hanging around in his waiting room for a while."



Joachim Sandrart looked at Ron. "He is a high military commander in the service of Venice. Your father, being at the University of Padua, is now, also, in a way in the service of Venice. Although I understand, of course, that he is an independent docent, not a salaried member of the faculty at the medical school. Given the popularity of his lectures, he's probably making more money that way. But if he, or your stepmother, should some day encounter any more difficulties, it would be all to the good if they could call on Rohan's good will. Which they are much more likely to be able to do if you have paid your courtesies to him."



Ron looked at Sandrart, then over to his brother Gerry, who was sitting in a corner of the inn by himself.



"Okay, then. We've been making pretty good time. A lot better than we did on the way down to Venice last year, but that was winter. I guess you deserve your chance. Though you could have asked the rest of us first, before you sent the messenger out. If the duke guy doesn't start playing games with us. Is that all right with you, Simon? We can ride over. If he sees Artemisia and Joachim the day we get there or the next, fine. If he doesn't, we're outta there. Or if Joachim wants to wait for him, he can stay behind."





The duke kissed Artemisia's hand in a very courtly manner. She was delighted, having begun to suspect that she was getting beyond the years when a man might think of kissing her hand outside of a formal public reception.



Rohan welcomed Sandrart briefly and immediately sent him upstairs with his private secretary and some other factotum to look at architectural drawings of his various residences, requesting that he submit a proposal for improving their interior decoration before he left or, if that was not possible, as soon as possible thereafter.



Then he told Gerry and Ron that he had heard their father, Herr Thomas Stone, the great chemist, speak. Several times. He had heard one of their father's public lectures during his last visit to Venice and deliberately delayed his return to Switzerland by a week in order to be a guest at his presentations at the medical school in Padua. True, he should have returned at once to engage in one more round of negotiations to bring peace between the Catholic and Protestant cantons. However, since they had now gone several years without achieving peace, he had doubted that a week would make much difference to the rate of progress.