by Eric Flint
"What, he personally told him?" That sounded odd, to Frank. He'd picked up enough about how the seventeenth century worked to know that who you knew was very, very important indeed.
"Oh, yes. Galileo and the pope are actually old friends. Or they were, at least."
"So how come the pope sicced the Inquisition on him?" This wasn't following the script that Frank was expecting.
"Well, it was more a question of not being able to stop it, or not easily, anyway. I've only gotten this from a book we have back in Grantville, you understand, that was made up of translations of all the papers about Galileo's trial that survived to the twentieth century, plus a book about Galileo's daughter. And, I have to confess, I last read up on the whole thing a while before I went to Grantville because I did a stint as a university chaplain and I got into arguments with scientists about it." Mazzare chuckled. "Actually, I used to really annoy them by pointing out that Galileo got caught by politics, and it was Protestants who suppressed the work of Copernicus and Kepler purely on the strength of it being contrary to Scripture."
"Who and who?" Frank asked.
"Oh, Copernicus was the Catholic priest who first discovered that the Earth orbits the sun, and Kepler was the one who figured out the laws of orbital mechanics. He died only a few years ago, as it happens. But I'm wandering off the point again."
"You say Galileo got caught by politics?"
"Yes. I said before that everyone thinks of it as a plucky scientist battling against the medieval darkness, but it's not that simple. To start with, as I said, Galileo used to be friends with the pope."
Frank heard where Mazzare put the stress on the words, and took his cue. "Used to be?"
Mazzare grinned. "Right up to when Galileo called the pope a simpleton in print."
Frank couldn't think of anything to say.
"Oh, not in so many words," Mazzare added, "but he took every opinion the pope ever expressed on the subjects of science and astronomy and put them into the mouth of a character called Simplicio. Now, at his trial—as I recall—he claimed that was supposed to be Simplicius, a philosopher from classical times. Thing is, he wrote it in Italian, and in Italian, Simplicio means . . ." He pointed to Frank.
"Simpleton. So the pope's really ticked off, huh?"
Mazzare wiggled his hand back and forth. "Hard to know, really. Urban VIII is a very sophisticated man, by all accounts. Not the type to fly into a rage over a minor personal insult—especially since he could, after all, choose to accept Galileo's excuse. Anyway, just to make his own life more interesting, Galileo published his book in Italian, like I say. So he couldn't claim that he was trying to start a learned debate, he'd written for the popular market. Even so, if he could have proven it, he'd have been fine. After all, if nature says one thing and the Church's teaching says another, the Church's teaching has to be wrong and the teaching has to be changed, right?"
"They can do that?" Frank asked.
"We can and we do, Frank. The thing is, a couple of places in the Bible, it talks about the sun going around the Earth. Now, you can read that as a description of what really is going on, or you can read it as the guy who wrote the words down saying what it looked like."
"And the Church is saying that's what it really is, right?" Frank was following the logic, now.
"That's about the size of it. And Galileo couldn't prove otherwise, you see. Part of that was that the astronomer who had the best evidence for the theory he was trying to prove was one of the many people Galileo had annoyed over the years. In fact, he'd denounced the evidence as fraudulent."
"What was it?" Frank was actually getting really interested, now.
"It was a comet, as I recall. Scheiner, who's in Rome right now, or it might have been Grassi, another of the Church's astronomers, I can't remember—"
"The Church has astronomers?"
"Sure. Most of the leading astronomers in this day and age are actually Catholic priests. Did you run into Father Kircher at the high school?"
"He's an astronomer?"
"Among other things, yes. He does just about everything; a very bright man. But as I say, there are these two Church astronomers who've got the evidence that goes a long way to prove what Galileo was saying."
"Then why don't they, I mean why didn't they come forward with it? Didn't they want to get accused of heresy too?"
Mazzare laughed. "This is why I said it was more complicated than everyone thinks. They published it, years ago. And Galileo called them both frauds. Galileo thinks comets are optical illusions in the upper atmosphere."
"He thinks what?" That didn't sound like the Galileo he'd heard about.
"Oh, yes. A lot of Galileo's 'science' was off-base. He came up with a wrong explanation for the tides, too. To make things worse, he's a notorious intellectual bully who rarely sees the need for common politeness. Take Scheiner and Grassi: he called one of them a drunk and the other one a plagiarist. Which is why they, between them, reported Galileo to the Inquisition when he published his last book. In which, as I say, he called the pope a simpleton."
Frank mulled over that for a moment. "Can't we send some astronomy textbooks to Rome, or something? If Galileo can prove it, he gets off, right?"
"Well, again it's not that simple. You know who Galileo works for?"
"I thought he was just, well, a scientist."
"He is, but he has to have a patron to keep him in eating money. There aren't universities with tenure in this day and age, so he gets paid by the Medici family. Now, that means that the Spanish, who as it happens own about half of Italy, are his enemy in order to get at the Medici, who just happen to own one of the bits of Italy that the Spanish want but don't have. Now, I'm simplifying this a whole lot, but basically the pope has a lot of pressure on him to throw Galileo to the wolves to do the Medicis a bad turn. Even so, in our old timeline, the pope stacked the trial as much as he could, and it was his nephew, Cardinal Barberini—"
"Hold on," said Frank, shaking his head with confusion. "I thought you said the pope was Cardinal Barberini?"
"He was, before he became pope. Cardinal Maffeo Barberini, he was then. And his brother's a Cardinal Barberini as well, and both of his nephews are Cardinals Barberini."
"Doesn't that get confusing?"
"Very," said Mazzare, deadpan, and then broke into a chuckle. "We shouldn't laugh, of course. His Holiness had a terrible crisis of conscience over his nepotism later in life, even though it's the way things are done nowadays."
"Right, so one of the Barberini nephews got Galileo a plea bargain?"
"That's right. He admitted that what he'd done gave the appearance of heresy."
"So what did they do to him if they didn't burn him at the stake?"
"Made him promise not to do it again, and sent him home with orders to stay there. He wrote a couple more books after that, and was a lot more careful not to insult anyone." Mazzare sighed again. "It was still a fairly embarrassing business all round, of course, even if the ban on his book never really got enforced outside Italy and was revoked later anyway. I'd like to think that the fact that they're waiting a lot longer to put him on trial than they did in the old history means that someone in Rome is thinking a lot harder about all these issues."
"Isn't there anything we can do? It doesn't seem right, him being in jail. Especially because he's an old man by now. I know that much."
"I don't honestly know what we can do, Frank. I've got a job to do here in Venice, and I wouldn't want to go meddling in a situation I don't fully understand. And no, he's not in jail just now, if they're doing it the same way they did in our history. They've just banned any more sales of his book and ordered him to stay home pending his trial."
"He's not in jail?" Again, things Frank had thought about the Inquisition were turning out not to be true. He'd had a firm image of old Galileo shackled with chains in a dungeon somewhere.
"No. I mean, don't get me wrong, the Inquisition's a blight on the Church and does a great deal that
is, by any standard, wrong, but they're not complete barbarians. Galileo got very mild, very respectful treatment from them. Apart, that is, from being made to stand trial and having one of his books banned. But he wasn't ever imprisoned or tortured, and he certainly wasn't ever treated with any physical harshness."
"Um." Frank was wondering how he was going to put this over with the guys. And especially with the Committee. He could just see Antonio Marcoli's reaction to him passing on apologies for the Inquisition and then asking for a date with his daughter.
On the bright side, on the other hand, if worse came to worst . . .
Springing him from house arrest might not be so bad. It's gotta beat fighting your way into a dungeon.
Mazzare interrupted the formation of a truly horrible image. Frank Stone, expiring on a pike in the bowels of a castle, his last sight the slime oozing down the damp stone walls . . . a skeleton nearby still sagging from the chains . . .
"Speaking of the job I have to do in Venice, Frank, the day after tomorrow there's a formal reception for us at the Palazzo Ducale. I was going to suggest to your father that you and your brothers come along. Would you be interested in that? I don't want to drag you along for something you don't want to go to, but you might find it interesting, and certainly educational, to see high Venetian society in action. The palazzo is a sight to see, as well, and going to an event like this is about the only way you'll see it, since they don't do public tours yet."
Suddenly Frank was presented with something he understood with perfect clarity. Before his eyes flashed a clear and perfect vision of him escorting Giovanna into a roomful of nobility, of her turning to him and expressing her admiration for how suave and debonair he was, and the rarified circles he moved in, and—
"Can I bring a date?" he blurted out.
Mazzare burst out laughing. "By all means, Frank. When you said you didn't have girl troubles, you weren't kidding, were you? How long have we been in this town? Three days?" He shook his head. "Seriously, Frank, check with your father first. And, I know this is a cliché, but whoever she is, don't do anything I wouldn't approve of, all right?"
Frank nodded, dumbstruck for a moment. He hadn't meant to check with a Catholic priest if it was okay to advance his love life—what had he been thinking of? Still, Father Mazzare seemed to be okay with it.
Mazzare went on: "And keep in mind that you can have worse troubles—a lot worse—than gaining my disapproval. In this day and age they don't just get annoyed about teenage tomfoolery. If she's got brothers or a father, they might actually come and kill you. Or hire it done, if they're rich. In fact, you make sure you check with her father first, all right? I don't want to have to get you on a fast horse out of town."
"Uh. Okay," said Frank. That actually made sense, now he thought about it. "I'll, uh, go find my dad, and, uh, make arrangements. Thanks for the, uh, you know."
"It was my pleasure, Frank." Mazzare smiled.
Frank left before he embarrassed himself any further.
* * *
Some hours later, Frank stepped out of the Casa Marcoli into the watery sunlight of a Venetian spring evening and heaved a sigh of relief. Discovering that he was shaking, he leaned against a pillar and tried hard not to throw up.
And then he remembered what he had just done, and whooped for joy. "Yes! He shoots, he scooooores!" he yelled, punching the air and drawing slightly alarmed stares from people in passing boats.
"I gather it went well, then?" Ron called up from the gondola they'd hired to get over. Frank had brought Ron for moral support. He'd not brought Gerry, on account of Gerry being more than likely to try something to spoil his chances. A kick me sign on his back would be the least of it, with Gerry.
"Oh, I reckon so," said Frank. He swaggered down the steps to the water.
"You actually got a date, then?" Ron helped Frank into the boat. "I admit, I'm impressed."
Frank grinned. "She said yes! And her daddy said yes, too!" He punched the air again, and drummed his heels on the bottom of the boat in delight.
"You got to bring a chaperone?"
"Nope, Messer Marcoli says he trusts me. Fellow revolutionist, and all. He also thinks it's a great idea I should take his daughter into a reception full of nobs and such because it strikes a blow against medieval privilege."
Ron laughed aloud as the gondolier poled them into the stream of traffic. "He actually said all that? How big a pack of lies did you tell him anyway?"
"Enough, Elrond," Frank said. "I assured him my intentions were entirely honorable. Um. Which they are, actually, and not just because the assorted Marcoli brothers and cousins have me outnumbered and her father's downright scary. I promised I'd bring her straight home."
"Sure, with maybe a detour on the way?" Ron sniggered.
"Jesus, Ron, you think I want to get killed? Besides, I think this is the real deal. Got to do it right, you know?"
"You said that about Missy. And Gudrun. And—"
"This time it is," Frank said sternly. "And you are, I kid you not, dead meat if you mention any of that to Giovanna, understand?"
"Scout's honor," Ron said, raising his right hand.
"You weren't ever a scout, and that's the Vulcan live-long-and-prosper sign anyway," Frank pointed out.
"Same difference." Ron shrugged. "Besides, enlightened self-interest. I may need your silence about my past one day."
"Point." Frank leaned back on the gondola seat. He took a deep, satisfied breath and sighed it out.
In Germany, winter still had its grip on the land. But Venice in March was Venice in spring.
Venice was truly, truly beautiful in the springtime. Even the stink of the canals seemed pleasant.
Chapter 16
There were advantages, Cardinal Bedmar reflected, to being persona non grata in Venice. Sourly, he studied the mob packed into the doge's palace. At least he'd been spared this unpleasantness since his arrival from the Spanish Netherlands a few weeks earlier. This was the first time he'd been invited to participate in one of the Venetians' beloved gala events, as one of the fish crammed into the barrel.
And why had he been invited at all? he wondered. Probably just because the Venetians enjoyed rubbing his nose in the fact that the ambassador from the infant "United States of Europe" enjoyed more status here than one of the representatives from the ancient and glorious Spanish Empire.
"My feet hurt," the cardinal announced.
"Yes, Your Eminence."
"And my back hurts," he went on.
"Yes, Your Eminence."
"And with all this insincere smiling, Sanchez, my God-damned face hurts."
Sanchez shifted from one foot to the other, a slight wince creasing his face. "Your Eminence bears his suffering well."
"Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, did I not know you better I would swear you were being sarcastic." Cardinal Bedmar spoke the words in the low undertone that all diplomats learned for functions like the one they were attending, his face hardly moving from its practiced smile.
"Oh, no," Sanchez drawled, likewise. "For that would be a heretical proposition of disrespect to a prince of the Church, rather than simply suggesting—as one old man to another—that Your Eminence is not the only one who is too old for this."
Sanchez, like the cardinal himself, was two-faced in the service of his country. In theory, a cardinal's gentiluomo like Sanchez was simply his master's close-protection man, the last line of defense for a prince of the Church and the bearer of a sword where a cleric ought not to wield one in his own person. In practice, Sanchez ran errands for his master the one-time diplomat.
Sometimes downright odd errands, those were. There had been few enough of them, though, in past years. Bedmar had been in near-retirement on the Council of Flanders, and until the year before Flanders had been quiet. As quiet, at least, as the nearby presence of the pestiferous Protestants in the United Provinces allowed. But all that had changed since the arrival of the Americans in what had come to be known as "t
he Ring of Fire." Now these bizarre people said to come from the future and their Swedish ally had kicked over the ant-heap in Germany.
On the positive side, most of the Netherlands was back in Spanish hands since the Dutch fleet had been destroyed through treachery and Cardinal-Infante Don Fernando had led a daring seizure of Haarlem. There were new men all over the place, in the Spanish Netherlands, brought by the cardinal-infante. The old warhorse Cardinal Bedmar had been sent back to Venice after fifteen years away. Some genius had decided he was the man to come in and foil whatever plot the Americans were working toward here, despite Bedmar's notoriety in the Serene Republic.
And so, tonight, Bedmar and his trusted assistant Sanchez were in the Sala de Gran Consiglio of the doge's palace, paying more attention to the magnificent Tintoretto paintings on the walls and ceiling than any of the pomp and flummery the Venetians loved so much. Bedmar had spent the evening so far smiling at people whom he had, fifteen years earlier, tried to have killed, ruined, or subordinated to foreign conquest.
That was from the Venetian point of view, of course. From Bedmar's own perspective, it had been a great adventure in the service of his country, widening the empire and taking back some of what the Venetians had leeched from Spain one way or another over the years. Their defiance, captiousness, decadence, whoring and irreligion were a byword across Europe, and there were better uses for the wealth and strategic position of the great city.
But . . . it had ended in humiliation. For some reason these decadent, coin-counting Italians did not want a change of regime at the hands of the greatest power in Europe. The Venetians had caught every one of Bedmar's Venetian partisans. Labeled them "traitors," no less; then, hung them after breaking their legs in the time-honored Venetian tradition. There had been ugly scenes with mobs of Arsenalotti on the day Bedmar had left the Most Serene Republic in a not-very-serene hurry.
A week after that scramble of a day, though, a couple of Imperial ambassadors had been thrown out of a window in the now-famous "defenestration of Prague." Bohemia had risen in revolt under a Protestant king and everyone had forgotten about Italy and what Bedmar had done in Venice—until de Nevers and his claim to Mantua gave everyone another pretext for mayhem in the interest of extending influence in the Italies. That had only just finished when the Americans turned up, but things had now settled down over the border in Mantua. The troops had gone elsewhere, as well, and Italy looked like a relatively safe place for the first time in fifteen years.