Two sentences had been exchanged each way and they had already established each others’ identity, that asylum was being offered by Rita’s brother Mike Stearns-prime minister of the USE-and that it had been accepted. But for anyone not aware of the precise identity of the group around the table, the exchange would merely have sounded like a meeting that mixed old friends with new acquaintances. Either way, the contact part of this rendezvous went easily and quickly enough. These little cardinals are pretty smooth operators. Now, time to pay the bill and stroll back to the The door opened: a medium-sized man stepped in, closed it, a broad brimmed hat pulled low, covering the upper half of his face. His clothes were simple, but made for travel; they might be well-worn, but they were not worn out. There was no sign of a weapon on his belt or in the loose folds of his cloak, but his flowing attire would make it entirely possible to carry a large dagger completely undetected. The proprietor came rushing out: the Babelesque debate in the kitchen flooded briefly into the room before he shut the door. “ Signor — mangi? Food?”

The newcomer nodded, murmured a request, and took a seat at one of the two remaining tables, the one closest to the group. He turned his hunched back toward the up-timers in an apparent effort to afford both parties some modicum of privacy.

It was, even to Tom’s untrained eye, all an act. Judging from the long, significant looks he got from both James and Melissa, he was not alone in his assessment. Well, we never planned on this, at least not so quickly after meeting the cardinal. Whoever this guy is, he must have been right on the little friar’s tail. Which means Melissa was probably right: someone dropped a dime on our rendezvous with His Eminence. And with this new guy’s big ears only a few feet away, we don’t have any way to come up with a plan on the sly. He probably speaks the whole gamut of local languages: Italian, Lombard, Savoyard, German, Romansch, maybe Romlisch. And since he obviously knows that we’re the folks he’s looking for- James’ dark black skin was, to put it lightly, distinctive in Alpine Italy — this guy was probably chosen, in part, because he speaks English, as well. So how do we-?