Now it was a hint of a plot in embryo to seize
the arsenal, involving some members of distinction in the households of
resident ambassadors; or word of the whereabouts of that wandering,
barefooted emissary with plenary powers, who had hitherto eluded
Venetian vigilance.
It was Piero also--although he never confessed to it--who, out of
compassion for Marina's priestly proclivities when she lay critically
ill, had made it possible for the Jesuits to remove those coffers of
treasure which, in spite of strictest orders to the contrary,
accompanied them on their flight from Venice; it was not that he took
part against Venice in the quarrel, but that the penalty of exile seemed
to him sufficient, especially as Marina had a weakness for priests; and
he could be generous in his use of power, though a man less daring would
not have risked the freak. But there was a masterful pleasure in
outwitting the Signoria and the Ten, lessened only by the consciousness
that he must keep this triumph to himself, and Piero also knew how to
hold his tongue--for discretion was a needful grace in that strange time
of barbaric lawlessness shrouded in a more than Eastern splendor.
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