Now it is Cesare's turn to goggle. Xellos's sudden volte-face into academic language leaves his mind scrambling to keep up. He feels thrown back into endless hours of Consistory, discussing the coarse business of money and stipends, disguised as debates about finer points of doctrine... as well as his own drooling happily on Miquel's shoulder, sweltering in the musty halls of Pisa's Sapienza while Dottore Deco deliberated on canon law.
"Er," he says.
Dragons? Angels?
"Oh, oh no, maestro, not so vanished! This benighted country called England may be under Anglican sway, but there's a Roman Catholic church just down Victoria Road - Santissimi Austin & Gregory. I just don't think Madonna Isabella would set foot in it." He looks mournfully at the empty plate, licking a drop of vergine from his thumb.