States of Grace by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Theories of the Heavens and the Nature of Clouds has gone into a second printing, and the author has asked to be permitted to amend his work should there be a third printing. I fear that the revisions Paget might make would be extensive, and it is a considerable task to alter vast amounts of text, but I will abide by His Excellency’s decision.
    Paper has been in short supply, as you know. It is one of the most persistent difficulties of the work we do here. I am certain that some of the trouble I have encountered in obtaining paper is due to the variety of works this press provides; if we were to print only Psalms and Testaments, I doubt we would encounter half the obstructions we have had to deal with.
    I look forward to the day when I can discuss this with His Excellency face-to-face, and I hope that at such a time His Excellency will do me the honor of providing solutions to the difficulties that now beset us; it is always possible that the tenor of the times could turn against the work we do, and the publications this press has produced for the public.

    In all duty and humility, I sign myself
His Excellency’s most
Truly obedient servant to command,
Mnr. Maarten Gerben
     

    On the 29 th day of April, 1530, at Bruges

4
     
    One of the bargemen was shouting imprecations and curses at the occupants of a private gondola; his energetic invectives carried across the water to the Ca’ Fosian, where it rose among the elaborate new palaces on the south side of the Pont’ Rialto; workmen labored to complete rebuilding the bridge. May had turned warm, and the brisk breeze was barely sufficient to cut through the midday heat, as penetrating as the furnaces of the glass-makers. The bargeman raised his voice again, calling on San Marco to strike the prosperous merchants in the gondola with lightning.
    From his second-floor study window, Orso Fosian watched the workers and wiped his face with his sleeve, then turned to his visitor. “If May is this hot, what will July be?” He expected no answer, and went on, “I wish I could tell you that any of my ships have had any success in evading the corsairs, but they have not.” He was almost fifty, still straight and imposing, although he walked slowly due to a painful back, and his face was the texture of old leather from his youth spent at sea. His dogaline-and-doublet were as fine as any in the city, of a dull-plum intertwined-leaf damask lined in a very conservative shade of pewter; the lace edging on his sleeves and collar was from Liege, and the points were accented with seed-pearls. “I have had to spend a fortune to get my sailors back, as have my brothers; the oarsmen must be considered lost to the Turks, may God punish them for their temerity.” As one of the six members of the powerful Minor Consiglio, he found his loss particularly galling. He reached for the shutter and slammed it closed, shutting out the clamor and invectives from the canal below, muttering, “No more.”
    “A heavy burden for any man,” said Franzicco Ragoczy di Santo-Germano. “Are you going to put armed men on your ships?” He, too, was handsomely dressed in a dogaline-and-doublet of black silk edged in a narrow band of silver lace and lined in deep-red satin, over a camisa of fine linen from Crete; his leggings and shoes were black, ornamented with small garters with diamond clips, at once restrained and luxurious.
    “I haven’t made up my mind,” Fosian confessed. “It is a dreadful expense, having such guards on the ships, and most soldiers don’t like duty at sea, but if they save the cargo and the crew, they are worth every ducat.”
    “Indeed,” said di Santo-Germano.
    “I have heard you have hired a company of armed men for your ships,” Fosian said, a speculative lift to his thick, white eyebrows.
    “For those ships traversing Ottoman waters, yes. If it proves a satisfactory arrangement, then I may put them on all the craft I own; the corsairs are broadening their hunts