When Fernand had come to him, a few days ago, to tell him that they returned from England, to tell him to publish the banns for his wedding and to ask what else was necessary, Agustin had informed him about the impending move to San Zanipolo, where he had got assigned as parish priest. As a good friend, Fernand promised to help him move, together with a couple of his crewmates. Agustin was grateful, because he trusted more the sailors than random people hired for this purpose and who could be of ill faith, to disappear with some of his goods.

The parish house, located between San Zanipolo Cathedral and Santa Maria dei Derelitti, next to which the Ospedaletto he was teaching in was hosted, was ready to receive him. Agustin had talked with his family, obtaining, as he had wished, that his former nurse be assigned as his housekeeper now. Ma'Santina, as he had called her since he was a baby, was already there since yesterday, having cleaned the house thoroughly. Actually, there were four priests in this cathedral, besides the Dominican friars who had their convent next, and the parish house building was shared into appartments for all of them. Agustin's was at the ground floor, as he had inherited it from the old priest who had died a few weeks ago. It was simple, but he didn't need anything large.

Michela the wolf pup, now four months and a half old, and not so fuzzy anymore, but equally playful and active, would be the queen of his part of the building and the too little porch. Agustin had brought her yesterday afternoon, in order to get accustomed both with the place and with Ma'Santina.

Santina was here since yesterday, together with her daughter. Her beloved milk son, whom now she had difficulties calling Padre Agustin, had obtained from his family not only to have her assigned in charge of his new house, too little, too suited for a modest priest and not at all for a nobleman of the Barbaro family how he was, but also to have her daughter help her for a few days with the strenuous tasks of setting house – namely cleaning, dusting, preparing everything to look less like the soul of the previous dweller, may God rest him in peace, and more like Padre Agustin’s cheerful presence.

The house was now brightly clean, with sweet basil, rosemary and season's flowers on all the tables: in the kitchen, in both the master's bedroom and her own, on the desk in the library. Of course, the furnitures were still empty, looking for the things brought from San Giorgio Monastery. As far as she understood, there was going to be only one transport. Padre Agustin didn't own many earthly things, except books. Then, after unpacking and arranging everything, she will have to make a list what else was necessary in order to properly run the house she was in charge with now. Rocco or Orsetta were good at this, as Santina couldn't write and, at her age, she was afraid that she might forget an important thing otherwise.

Being a housekeeper instead of a house maid was an important rise in status, and she felt both honoured by this and happy that her favourite milk son needed her.

Orsetta was accustomed to working as hard as her mother, and helping her with all kind of housework, as this was what she had done since very young. She didn’t remember too clearly Padre Agustin from the time he was still living with them, as she was merely a child, but the vague memories she had were always connecting him to her brothers, Rocco and Jacoppo. All three were always together in her young years.

Now she enjoyed the change of the usual work routine. Ca’Barbaro was big and involved a lot of tiresome work, not to mention the awful moods and requirements of the young lady of the house, the heir’s new wife. Here, the house was way smaller, or rather actually only a part of it was in her mother’s charge, the other parts belonging to other priests. Padre Agustin seemed to be more modest and popular than his older brother, and he didn’t require more than what one normally could do in order to get a house well swept, washed, aired, polished.

Last evening they had attended, together with Padre Agustin, the concert of the Ospedaletto choir in Santa Maria dei Derelitti, where the children usually repeated. Some days she was told these orphan children were singing also in San Zanipolo, the church where Padre Agustin was preaching since next week. This had been an unusual treat for the sheltered young woman.

Yesterday also she had been allowed to go with errands in town, namely in San Marco neigbhourhood, to the printing shop where her brother Rocco was working, and tell him about the move. Luckily he could get a free day to come today to help with the moving and all. But Padre Agustin had also some sailor friends to help him, fortunately. Among them, there was a man as black as she had never seen and thought possible, who talked very little, one stronger than Rocco and with a foreign accent and one who, despite being white, had the hair almost as curly as the black one. Just almost, the curls were looser… not unlike the young lady of the house’s lap dog’s.

Since his mother had sent Orsetta to tell him that Agustin was moving, Rocco had gently asked Master Anton for a free day, and he had obtained it. He would spend more hours in the following days to finish the due gazzetta in time, without neglecting his milk brother who needed help with moving. He couldn't let Agustin down, and he was glad to spend a day with him - even if the early morning had been spent with his mother, doing the parts of the cleaning which needed a man's strength.

"At least such joyous opportunities to see each other from time to time," he told his milkbrother when he arrived to San Giorgio Maggiore and finally found him.

Now, together with three sailors he had been introduced to, he took one of the already packed trunks and he carried it to the gondola. It felt heavy, but as a pressman he had carried heavier loads of paper, composed galleys and other things related to his trade. Not to mention the furniture his mother had asked him to move in the morning...

Arriving to San Giorgio, Fernand made the introductions.

"Padre, I brought my friends to help you with the move. He is my crewmate Stephane Vrignaud, that you have seen before. He speaks French and Venetian. And he is Aatami, speaking French and English, but he is just learning Venetian for a couple of weeks."

He knew that Padre Agustin spoke French well.

"Glad to see you again, Padre. What's for us to move?" Stephane asked.

When introducing Aatami, Fernand remembered from the ordination ceremony that the priest was acquainted with Thurenza too.

"Padre Agustin knows signora Bellamare," Fernand told Aatami.

Agustin greeted the sailors and blessed them, in thanks for their offer to help, He looked at Aatami with curiousity and admiration. Having spent all his life in Venice and just a bit in the rural mainland, he hadn't seen many people of colour, and none pitch black like this one. He was also impressed by the man's obvious strength. With him and Fernand, with Rocco and Stephane, who were well-built but not as strong as the other two, one transport would be enough. He had already said his good byes in the monastery and he was ready to leave behind that chapter of his life.

"These trunks are to be carried. Rocco, get a gondola, please! I am going to stop another one, because we don't get all five plus the gondolier and all the luggage in the same gondola."

As Fernand was telling the black man that he was acquainted with Thurenza, Agustin flinched in surprise. Something didn’t add up. He knew that Thurenza told him to pray for a man from far away who had to find his way to her, but the name she had given him was different.

"You are the one whom Thurenza awaited?" he asked with a kind smile.

Aatami looked with big eyes at the priest, the first one he had the opportunity to see from closer. He seemed to be a kind man. His eyes were speaking to Aatami more than anything else. The benign curiousity he was seeing in the priest's eyes was a thing he had got accustomed to in Venice. In some eyes, like back in Georgia, he could see disdain; not in padre Agustin's, though. When informed by Fernand that Aatami didn't speak much Venetian, the priest had switched immediately to French, except when he addressed the other man he had introduced to them, Rocco. It seemed that man understood French better than he could speak.

When Fernand told him that padre Agustin was acquainted with Thurenza, he merely smiled and nodded. The world was small; Venice seemed big only for someone like him, who came from afar. In truth, people there must have known each other like the Shawnees knew those from the same village or from the neighbouring ones, with whom usually were related by various marriages occurred in several generations.

The reaction was different when padre Agustin asked him directly if he was the one Thurenza had been waiting for.

"Yes, I am. Captain Beppin took me aboard his ship in Gibraltar and Fernand brought me to her."

His voice was warm, but he didn't give more information which weren't up to him to give. Thurenza was the one living here for a while, understanding the world she was living in. It was her decision how she wanted to introduce him anywhere. Yes, he had seen how she had done it up to now, but at the same time he knew it was wiser to let this up to her.

The gondolas came. Fernand, Rocco and Stephane got into one of them, with their luggage, while Aatami remained with him. The priest was still pondering his words, not sure how to approach the aspect he didn't understand. Ultimately, he found a rather direct way.

"I have been praying that you find your way to her, and I am glad you did it, if you are that one… but the name she gave me was different," he said, still puzzled and not sure what to make of the scraps of information he had.

After they were already in the middle of the canal, on the way to Agustin's new home, looking around at the palaces bordering the area, he changed the subject:

"How do you like Venice?" he asked Aatami.

Fernand, Rocco and Stephane didn't talk much. They arrived the first to the new parish house, where Rocco's mother was waiting for them. Each of them had a trunk in their hands.

"Put them here!" the old woman showed them a place where they wouldn't be in the way. "Then take a seat. You must be tired."

"Come on, mama, it wasn't that long a distance!" Rocco protested. "Agustin said it was the only trip we have to make. He hadn't left anything else behind for us to retrieve."

"PADRE Agustin, show some respect to him and his holy cloth, no matter how close you used to be in your childhood!" his mother's reply came immediately.

Her words made Rocco roll his eyes silently. For him Agustin would remain the same one he had grown up with and he had been punished together with for various childish mischief, even when their older brothers had actually been the leaders. Looking at Stephane, he realized he had forgotten to introduce the men to his family.

"Mama, he is Fernand and he is Stephane, friends of… Padre Agustin, and sailors. Fernand, Stephane, meet my mother, Santina Bembo, and my sister, Orsetta."

Orsetta and her mother curtsied while the young men bowed their heads. The arrival of … Padre Agustin and Aatami gave the opportunity for new surprised stares and new introductions.

Aatami was at his turn surprised that Thurenza had told the priest about him, and that the priest had been praying for him. At how many gods his life had known – the ones of the tutsi people, the Christian god, the ones of the fellow slaves, the ones of the Shawnees - he appreciated that any god's help might matter, and none should be disconsidered.

"She gave you the name I received at birth, Askhuweteau," he said. "Aatami is the name I received upon the adoption into the Shawnee people. I am a Shawnee warrior, having lived with them for five years more than in the village I was born to."

At the question how he liked Venice, he replied promptly:

"It's a beautiful and unusual city. Like none I saw before. I will get accustomed to it. I am here only for five days,"

The gondola stopped. He took a trunk and padre Agustin took another luggage and he followed the priest to the house where the things were to be moved. It was a house arranged nicely, and freshly clean, way smaller than Thurenza's but bigger than the Shawnee huts.