by Eric Flint
Somewhere in his—yes! There—his pistol! He tugged at the hilt of the thing through the pocket-cut of his soutanne, at the same time scrabbling across the floor. Out of the door stepped a man—dark-dressed, rough, villainous-looking. Mazarini took in the twist of his mouth where a scar—but he was raising a pistol and Mazarini, cursing, could not get his own free of his soutanne; all he was doing was pulling at his own leg and—
A blast of noise, and scar-face jerked sideways and was crumpling, his face screwed up. Somehow Mazarini could see the detail that his breeches were stained.
Within the room—"Fuck!" Harry was definitely alive in there—another shot. Harry's shotgun, by the sound.
Silence, then. Mazarini got to his feet, saw that scar-face was down, unconscious and bleeding in several places. He shook at his pistol, drew it free. He rapped the butt against his palm, then hauled back on the lock. His mouth was dry. He sidled up to the door.
From within, a slight noise. The light was behind him; if he went in, whoever was within would see him first. "Harry?" he called out.
The only answer, two shots. The first, the throaty cough of a pistol. The second, Harry's shotgun. Then a thud. As, perhaps, of a body hitting the floor.
Mazarini swallowed, then thought to check either way along the landing. Movement. "Arrête-là!" he called out, spinning to level his pistol. Whoever it was, a shape at the far end of the corridor by the stairwell vanished. He ran, realizing only halfway down the corridor that he had just exposed his back. He got to the head of the stairs, shouted down: "Stop him!"
"Stop who?" came back the answer, and mocking laughter.
The twentieth century had some things worth the Ring of Fire to bring them back. "Motherfucker," Mazarini snarled, and felt better for it. On the wall, there was a display of old swords. Better than nothing. He took one down, felt the weight and ill balance of a weapon meant more for battering armor than the singing phrase of steel. He brought it up to a badly balanced mockery of a sabreur's guard and edged back along the corridor, pistol leveled in the other hand, his back to the wall.
A body flew out of the doorway to his chambers; the fright made him squeeze the trigger. Somewhere, something shattered. Whoever it was hit the opposite wall and landed badly.
"Giulio?" It was Harry's voice. "You there?"
"I'm here, Harry."
Harry Lefferts swaggered out of the doorway, the bravo's pose only mildly spoiled by the fact that he was sucking on the knuckles of his right hand. "Three of 'em, there were," he said, taking the knuckles out of his mouth. There was a scorch of powder up the left side of his face. His sawed-off shotgun dangled almost negligently from his left hand, broken open and empty.
"Four," said Mazarini. "One ran."
"Two," said Harry, looking down.
Scar-face was gone. The other seemed to be in poor shape. Mazarini bent to see. "Dead," he said, "or soon will be. I think his skull, perhaps his neck is broken." The man had fouled himself where he lay, his eyes rolled up white.
Harry was looking left and right along the corridor, his hands reloading the shotgun almost automatically. "Glad Dan Frost never took this 'un off me. I gave my other one to Becky."
"Your pistol?"
"I got it. In there." Harry nodded his head back toward the room. "Stripped down for a little servicing. When these jokers turned up I was behind the screen, taking a leak. Lucky I didn't have a lamp on, and the bastards didn't think to check in the wardrobe, which was where I hid."
"Monsignor!" It was the servant from the hallway. "I heard someone shoot—" He stopped, breathless. "Assassins!"
"Well, that was just as convincing as all hell," drawled Harry Lefferts. A flick of the wrist and his shotgun snapped shut.
The servant's face went into a parody of puzzlement. "Monsignor? What did he say?"
"He wants to know how much you were paid not to warn me."
"But Monsignor, I—" The outraged bluster cut off, as Harry poked the muzzle of his sawed-off into the man's belly.
"Ten livres," he said, simply.
"Fair." Mazarini nodded. "And you did not tell them that Monsieur Lefferts was in?"
"Non. I told them he was out. When I heard nothing, I feared the worst for Monsieur Lefferts, and thought that they must have succeeded in killing him quietly."
Harry snorted.
"Now, Harry, let us not be harsh. He thought he could take his ten livres and let these ruffians die at your hand, eh?"
The servant nodded.
"It is probably for the best that I do not know your name, eh?"
Another nod.
"For if I did know it, I might denounce you and you would suffer death on the wheel as an accomplice to murder, yes? But if you leave Paris so I never see you again, you might live a long life."
Nod, nod.
Mazarini took a deep breath. "Go. Now." He did not raise his voice.
The servant ran.
Harry broke open the action on his gun, pulled out the cartridges. "What the hell was that all about?"
Mazarini raised both eyebrows. "But surely you have some idea? Which father or brother or husband—cousin, for that matter—have you outraged most these few weeks past?"
Harry twisted his lip. "Funny, Giulio. Funny. They spoke French, that I do know."
"Which means nothing. Such as they can be hired in any tavern you care to name in this city." He sighed. "I could use a drink," he said, and walked into his chambers.
* * *
Shortly thereafter, the real alarm was raised. Servants—frightened-looking ones, who approached nervously, not wanting to get shot—turned up. Harry spoke to them, and they began to remove the two corpses. The one in the corridor had been relatively decorous. The one Harry had shot at close range was missing a face, mostly.
"The fellow who came a-running was just some footman, been here maybe a week."
"Ah. Perhaps he was a little too glib."
"Whatever. He wasn't going to tell us anything anyhow, Giulio. Nor is anyone else. They thought those guys were just regular visitors. For me, that is." Harry paused a moment. "I think your guy was telling the truth, actually. He didn't tell them I was in, did he?"
Mazarini pondered the matter, briefly. Then, shrugged. "He's gone now."
"Well, perhaps it was an outraged husband. Or father. It'd have to be one from Rome, though, on account of I've steered clear of that here."
Mazarini raised an eyebrow.
Harry grinned. "Honest!"
Mazarini felt his head beginning to ring a little, and sat down. Harry sat as well, reached for the drink that a servant had brought. "Never mind. It's got to be something from Rome, yes?"
"Has it?" Mazarini was suddenly not feeling very subtle.
"Sure, I mean here—in Paris, I mean—you're an ambassador. The one group of people who ain't going to kill you are the French."
Mazarini thought about it. True, he was quite sure the assassins had not been sent by Richelieu. Certainly not after the cardinal's veiled offer that very day and the evident rapport between himself and the queen that very evening.
But "the French" numbered in the millions. Had he somehow gotten wind of Richelieu's scheme—or, more likely, simply read one of those cursed American history books—Monsieur Gaston and his confederates had every reason to want Mazarini dead.
Giulio Mazarini, envoy of the Papacy and possibly the future chief minister of France, rubbed his face. Of course, Monsieur Gaston was only one possibility. In the Europe of the year 1633—and never leaving out of the equation, as Americans liked to say, the long arm of the Ottoman Turk—the workings of diplomacy were often hard to distinguish from murder. The American history books had simply—again, to use an American expression—poured gasoline on the flames.
"Motherfuckers," he said again. And, again, felt the better for it.
* * *
The next morning, Harry Lefferts departed for Grantville. Once astride his horse—he rode the beast easily and gracefully; it
was almost frightening the way Harry had adopted the seventeenth century—the young American looked down at Mazarini.
"You'll be all right without me?"
Mazarini smiled crookedly. "I shall certainly miss the security of your shotgun. Not to mention that barbaric knife of yours. But, yes, Harry, I'll be fine. I did somehow take care of myself for thirty years before you showed up, you know."
"Okay, okay. Just checking." Lefferts' face was unusually solemn. "They're all going to be playing for your loyalty, too, Giulio, not just trying to cut your throat. You know it and I know it. Betcha anything the cardinal made you a hell of an offer yesterday."
Not for the first time, Mazarini reflected that there was a keen brain underneath the young American bravo's swagger. Harry had taken to everything in this century with panache and gusto—including scheming and maneuver.
The months they had spent together, if nothing else, would allow no dissimulation. Now that Harry was leaving, Mazarini realized with a bit of a start that he had come to cherish the young American's friendship.
"Yes, he did. And, no, I don't know yet how I will respond."
Harry nodded. "Fair enough. I'm glad my loyalties ain't so complicated." He leaned over and extended his hand. "So long, then. It's been a pleasure, Giulio, really has. However we meet again, I promise there'll be no hard feelings on my part."
Mazarini returned the firm handshake. "Mine, neither."
It was all true enough, he thought, watching Harry trot away. Not entirely comforting, of course. Mazarini had also been one of the witnesses at Harry's duel with the brute Agnelli. Whatever fury there had been in Lefferts' bloody actions of the moment, there had been none shortly thereafter.
"There's a man needed killing," Harry had commented casually, almost cheerfully. "Glad to have been of service."
He'd been quite relaxed about it all. Mazarini had no difficulty at all imagining Harry standing over his own corpse. Sorry, Giulio. No hard feelings, but . . . it had to be done.
So be it. What would come, would come. Mazarini turned back into the comte's domicile, his mind already turning to the maneuvers of the future. Besides, he still didn't know what decision he would finally make, in the end.
Who was to say? The next time he saw Harry Lefferts, he might be shaking his hand again.
Chapter 3
"Fascinating."
Antonio Barberini looked sharply at Vitelleschi. "I do believe, Father, that that is the first word you have spoken in my presence today."
"My apologies, Your Eminence. I was deep in thought." Vitelleschi gave every sign of still having his faculties at their utmost concentration.
Not surprising, that. The narrow, bladelike man who stood in one of the many elegantly decorated reception-rooms of the Palazzo Barberini in Rome had a potent reputation. Father-General Muzio Vitelleschi, like every General of the Societas Jesu before him back to Father Inigo Lopez de Loyola, was a man to be reckoned with. Part of it was the reputation for ferocious learning. Another part, the famous fourth vow of the Society, of personal loyalty and obedience to the pope. Still another, the Society's iron-hard rule of regular and full reporting that made the man who sat at the center of all its lines of communication arguably the best-informed man in Europe.
Mostly, though, it was the sheer effectiveness of the organization that he headed, an effectiveness that had made the Jesuits the target of every Protestant propagandist in Europe. The Jesuits, they said, were like the night: they always returned.
Vitelleschi was regarding Cardinal Barberini with a cool gaze that few cats could have matched. The Jesuit general was an old man, but not stooped. The high-boned, ascetic face was of a piece with the narrow hungry frame. The calm blue eyes and unwrinkled mien spoke of ice water in the veins. Close-cropped hair, a short beard, both snow-white and fussily trimmed.
"You have some thoughts?"
"I was thinking about Giulio Mazarini. The young monsignor is worthy of watching. I have a man who has marked him, and he is most marvelously disingenuous. But the principal matter has to be the doctrine, no?"
"Ah." Barberini looked at the papers on the table. They were a summary, in essence, of the books that Mazarini had brought with him some months earlier from Grantville. Mazarini had written the summary himself, before he left for Paris. It contained the distilled wisdom and positions of a Roman Catholic Church centuries in the future. The American priest in Grantville, a certain Father Mazzare, had insisted that Mazarini present them to the Holy Father.
Barberini had read the accompanying letter written by Father Mazzare. It had been politely—even deferentially—worded, but neither Barberini nor his uncle Pope Urban VIII had any doubt that the letter and the accompanying documents were, in essence, an ultimatum. A declaration of war, if you would—except that the priest was making a final offer to make peace instead. Provided that peace was made on his terms.
Not that Mazzare would have put it that way. Barberini had the sinking feeling that Mazzare was one of those pestiferous clerics who felt quite firmly that he was simply the organ for a greater truth—in his case, the distilled truth of the Roman Catholic Church to which he belonged. He wasn't demanding, however politely, that the Church make peace on his terms, but on its own.
Barberini sighed. Another church, in another universe, whose spokesman in this one felt himself to be its voice—and had the documents to back up his claim. And, clearly, not a man easily intimidated. If the matter was not handled properly, Mazzare could become even more explosive than Martin Luther.
"The doctrine. You have read it?"
Vitelleschi stared hard at the cardinal.
"Forgive me, Father-General," said Barberini. "Have you formed an opinion?"
"I have formed—" Vitelleschi paused. "Several opinions. The first is that any hope of another immediate Counter-Reformation is a slim one. The second is that, while I do not know what the reaction of the Protestants of the future might be, the ones of the present day will almost certainly denounce any new doctrine as strongly as the existing."
Vitelleschi lapsed into silence. Barberini waited him out.
When Vitelleschi spoke again, he turned as much away from Barberini as he could without offering his back. He stared into space, his eyes half-closed. "If we are to act on this at all, we must act subtly. An elegant stroke, I think, needs to be found. One blow that sets in motion all that follows. A 'Vatican Council' is not, I think, that blow."
Barberini was inclined to agree. "I know nothing of the council they have in that other time, but now? I doubt we could even hold the Council of Trent again in these times. Not so? After the breviary fiasco?"
Vitelleschi nodded. His Holiness had, a couple of years before, tried to convene a committee to reform the breviary; it was overdue to be done. Months of bickering had resulted in a testy pope ordering the discussions ended with virtually nothing to show and a breviary that was, if anything, worse than before.
"And have you an opinion as to these new doctrines?" Barberini's aesthete manner was as arch as he could make it. He only technically outranked the father-general, otherwise known as the Black Pope for the power he usually chose not to wield.
"When His Holiness has read sufficient, heard sufficient and prayed sufficient to have an opinion, that will be my opinion also." Vitelleschi's eyes seem to close still further. "If His Holiness wishes my advice, I shall give it, of course. I have, as it happens, read the entirety of the books which Mazarini brought back with him, not simply the summary. But I will speak on each point separately, and in public only if His Holiness asks that of me."
"Thank Christ for hierarchy, eh?" Barberini guffawed, briefly.
Vitelleschi smiled. "I believe we need to take one immediate action. Information is our principal need at this time, and I will send to Grantville for a summary of what they have that we have not already seen. That will inform our thinking in more detail. Most important."
Barberini nodded. "It is. And your plan beyond that?"
"It is not a plan as yet. But I believe that Richelieu is suitably warned of what he is up against, as we took pains to send Monsignor Mazarini and his American companion Signor Lefferts to Paris, however briefly either might have remained. And, in the fullness of time, we will take further action if the Church remains beset by France and Spain in concert."
"You believe this United States could be an ally?"
"I believe they may be convinced to be an effective enemy of our enemy. Allies?" Vitelleschi shook his head. "In a hundred years, perhaps. With much reform in both the Church and in the United States. Perhaps."
Barberini stared hard. "Muzio, either you really are addled in your wits or you are playing the deepest game I have ever seen."
Vitelleschi's smile was, again, brief. "I have learned a thing or two from my brethren in the Japans. I commend their reports to your reading."
Barberini cocked his head on one side. "Muzio, you mentioned reform in the United States. What are you planning?"
"No more than the Society ever plans. We open schools and wait. Give us boys of impressionable years, Your Eminence, and we will answer for the actions of the men."
"Including Tilly? Wallenstein?"
Vitelleschi was not smiling, now. "Yes, Your Eminence. Including the Tilly who tried to prevent the sack of Magdeburg. And including the Wallenstein whose administration of his estates is among the most enlightened in Europe. We will answer for them, for good or ill."
Barberini looked away. It was at moments like this that he was reminded of the vast gulf that separated him—and all of the Barberini clan, including his uncle Pope Urban VIII—from the Father-General of the Societas Jesu. All of them were pious men, to be sure. But none of the Barberini, not even the pope himself, had the pure raw faith of Muzio Vitelleschi.
It was odd, really. Vitelleschi was much like them, in so many other ways. Immensely sophisticated, learned, cosmopolitan—as astute in the devious and intricate corridors of political power and maneuver as any man in Europe. He even shared the Barberini pleasure in art and science. But, in the end, he was no Renaissance prince of the Church. He was shaped and stamped, molded and formed, in the same manner that had produced the Basque soldier who had founded the Jesuits. There was something ultimately medieval about the man.