by Eric Flint
Owen shrugged. “I like prudence in the officers both above me and below me, so you’ll not find me complaining. My only concern is that we’ll spend the next two days a bit understaffed, with more watches to stand and more posts to man than we’ve got bodies to go around.”
Ruy smiled. “I have an affinity for prudent officers as well, and I appreciate—and share—your misgivings. We simply differ on which is the lesser of two evils.”
O’Neill looked at the door leading to the servants’ refectory. “Well, neither are so evil as this part of the job.”
Ruy cocked one eyebrow high. “You find interviewing the palace staff bothersome?”
O’Neill cast a hand sideways, as if indicating the fault lay with the world at large, not any one specific part of it. “It’s this nosing about in people’s business that irks me. I’m still a soldier, Ruy; I hope to be until my Maker calls. You’ve been one, too, and it’s a simpler job than this trying to sniff out a rat among the staff. Me? I’d rather this palace be off limits to everyone but our units and the Benedictines from down the street at Notre Dame. Not really a chance of a traitor amongst that lot.”
Ruy smiled. “Frankly, I agree with you. But the sensitive palates and aristocratic expectations—not to say pretenses—among many of the attendees make that quite impossible. And only one of pope’s inner circle sympathized with our desire to temporarily dismiss the staff and prohibit all other external contact.”
“Who? Mazzare?”
Ruy shook his head. “Cardinal Mazzare has largely recused himself to keep the proceedings ‘free from up-time influence,’ as he put it.”
“Then who was it who was willing to do without all the folderol?”
Ruy smiled wider. “Father Vitelleschi.”
O’Neill’s grin matched Ruy’s. “Good on that tough old bird. He’s halfway to an ascetic himself, and he’d not be willing to increase risk for the sake of high-born sensibilities.”
“That is true enough,” Ruy agreed. “Unfortunately, he also lacks the sensibilities of a diplomat, which are sorely needed at this colloquium.” Ruy put his hand on the door to the kitchen. “So: have you readied yourself?”
“Let’s get it over with.”
* * *
After meeting and briefly conversing with a seeming infinitude of porters, servers, cooks, butchers, victualers, footmen, and bookkeepers, Ruy was ready to convert to Owen’s perspective and seek a place back in the ranks of the tercios—anyone’s tercios—just to be freed from interviewing servants and workers. On the one hand, it was blindingly tedious; one lifestory bled into the next like a canvas made up of multiple, sequential watercolors, all painted from the same color. On the other hand, it was persistently unsettling. Ruy knew, from personal experience, what it was like to be at another human being’s beck and call. He had started out life that way, had ultimately made his fortune and accrued a title (or at least no one challenged its authenticity), but had wound up a servitor once again at the end, as Bedmar’s armsman and confidante. No matter that the service had been extremely profitable, that he had lived nearly as well as his employer, that he had dabbled in the skills and habits of a courtier in his own right. It did not change the simple, inescapable fact that he had not been, in the final analysis, his own man. When Bedmar beckoned, he came; when given an errand, he went. And now, here he was, put in the detestable position of having to dig into the private affairs of persons who were already hostage to the will of others, who got their coin, their bread, their survival, by learning how to bow a little lower, to mumble apologies with a little more deference.
He suspected that Don Owen Roe O’Neill, coming from a nation that existed for centuries under a similar yoke, had the same sensibilities. As they waited for the major domo and his assistant, the senior victualer, to arrive for their interview, Ruy said as much to the colonel.
Owen Roe smiled sadly. “I’ve spent almost no time in Ireland, but when I have, it’s been to hire young cultchies to take foreign coin as mercenaries, as Wild Geese. Who are, you might say, the most trapped of all servitors.”
Ruy frowned. “You may sell your sword to any.”
Owen Roe’s smile became brittle. “That’s the theory, but that’s not how it works out, my friend. Firstly, none but Infanta Isabella’s court treats us as anything other than fodder for enemy cannon. Under every other banner, we’re given the dirtiest jobs, which is to say, the ones most likely to cut your life very short. And good luck to the mum or sister back in Ireland to ever see a farthing of the pay you bought with your life.”
He shook his head. “So, that leaves most of the young mercenaries of Ireland with one option: to serve under Isabella—and now, Fernando—in the Spanish Lowlands. But doing so means we’ll never see our homeland again, except to go and hire more of our young lads away from where they might make trouble for the Sassenach occupiers. Which is the only reason they let the likes of me back home at all…and never for very long.”
Ruy found himself at a loss for words of cheer—or words at all, which was a most unaccustomed and uncomfortable feeling. So it was a positive relief when, a mere moment later, Jean LaVey, the major domo, arrived with his spindly second in tow. Ruy had spoken to LaVey before, but that discussion was essentially a pro forma exercise in which the Frenchman recited his bona fides, indicated the various town fathers who would vouch for their authenticity, and gave a general accounting of his actions and whereabouts for the last three months. Throughout, LaVey demonstrated the unctious palaver with which he had secured his rise to major domo; by all accounts, he was markedly better at flattery than organizing a noble’s household. But, due to current conditions, and much of the regular staff being off with Duke Bernhard and about to commence campaigning, he had been given additional powers and further trust with the keys and other means of access to the valuables in the house. Upon hearing this, O’Neill began questioning him in earnest, and far more closely. Several times, LaVey glanced toward Ruy, as if seeking deliverance or at least some measure of intercession. Ruy only smiled.
Throughout the ebb and flow of the interview, LaVey’s assistant sat in a farther chair, watching with the fatalistic fascination of a cornered mouse witnessing a cat tearing apart one of his rodent kin. When O’Neill asked his final question—“And does anyone else have the same kind of access to the house and its contents?”—and LaVey gestured at his spindly assistant, that spare man seemed ready to jump out of his skin, so profoundly did he start.
O’Neill turned toward the suddenly terrified assistant to the major domo. “You: what’s your name?”
“Claude. Claude Delgado, Your Excellency.”
O’Neill raised an eyebrow. “Monsieur Delgado, is it? Hmmm…Spanish name, that.”
Claude blinked several times before he was aware that a reply was expected of him. “Yes, sir, Spanish, sir. A common name here in town. Besontsins all of us, after the family moved from Barcelona about a century ago.”
“And since then, bousbots, every one of them,” the major domo added dismissively.
“Bousbots?” echoed O’Neill. “‘Toad shooters’?”
Ruy sat forward. “The local term for inhabitants of the Battant. From the Protestant campaign against the city in the 1570s; the Catholic winemakers who lived over the Doub, near the vineyards, impaled a horde of toads on small stakes as a warning to the Reformationists. It was not effective; battle was joined even so.”
LaVey was nodding. “And once a bousbot, always a bousbot, eh, Claude?”
Claude nodded nervously, unwillingly, looking as if he might somehow fold into himself and disappear.
Ruy did not know what he found more irritating: LaVey’s superciliousness or Claude’s cowed timidity. He leaned forward toward the latter. “Well, you know why we are here, Monsieur Delgado. We wish to know your activities and whereabouts for the past few months.”
Delgado simply stared at him, looking as if he might soil himself any moment.
“Your superior sa
ys you have access equal to his. Is this true?”
Delgado’s head wobbled in what could have been either a shake or a nod.
Ruy felt himself on the verge of losing composure; he decided to see how Delgado would react, what he might reveal. “Well, man, speak up: what do you have to say for yourself?”
“N-nothing, my lords,” Claude almost whined. “I am innocent!”
“Of what?”
“Of…of whatever crime you are investigating!”
“And why do you think we are investigating a crime?”
“What else, with such seriousness? And with weapons at hand?” He glanced nervously at their belts. O’Neill leaned back in but started asking simpler, more finite questions in a quiet tone.
Ruy almost rolled his eyes. So, once again, we play what my peerless Sharon would call “good cop, bad cop.” Although this time Ruy felt as though he needed to wash off; whether from LaVey’s obsequious attempts at familiarity or Claude’s trembling cowardice, he could not say.
O’Neill managed to get the bare facts out of the still quivering Delgado quietly and quickly. Ruy and the Irishman exchanged glances, then shrugs. Delgado’s life sounded about as uninteresting and narrow as any human could conceivably endure. It felt wrong to have made him testify to the particulars of it, as if it were somehow akin to a public shaming.
“Very well,” announced Ruy, rising. “We are done for the day. If we have further questions, we shall seek you out.”
LaVey’s protestations of fulsome cooperation were the counterpoint to Delgado’s trembling stillness.
No sooner had the door back into kitchen closed behind them, than LaVey came out upon their heels. “I must say, sirs, that Monsieur Delgado is a disturbing man, at times. Yes, I must say that.”
You must say it? Ruy thought as O’Neill asked, “Disturbing in what way?”
LaVey seemed momentarily flustered, as if his assertion hardly needed explication. “Well, because he keeps very much to himself. Too much. If you take my meaning.”
Ruy stopped, turned to face LaVey. “I’m afraid I don’t take your meaning. Please make it more clear.”
LaVey halted so suddenly that he almost tripped over his own feet. “Delgado is…well, he is unwilling to socialize with the rest of us.” He leaned closer, his voice lower. “And it is said he has…untoward affairs.”
“Untoward? You mean, of a criminal nature?”
LaVey blinked, surprised. “Well, no…but maybe?”
Ruy knew a reaching tone, an attempt to seem important, when he heard one. “We will keep an eye on him.” And even more on you, LaVey, since you seem so eager to implicate your coworker.
Ruy turned and strode quickly toward the doorway that led back to the entry hall and, beyond that, to fresh air.
O’Neill was pacing him. There was a slight smile on his face. “So, I’m guessing we’re done here?”
“Very much so,” Ruy breathed. “Let us get outside. Quickly.”
Chapter 21
As they descended the steps of the Palais Granvelle, Ruy peered up at the sun. He had about an hour before reviewing the watchposts and then receiving the investigatory update on the fellow they had found murdered in the alley the night before. Enough time for his intent, then. Ruy set off toward the Carmelite convent, just across the street.
“Half a second, Sanchez,” O’Neill called from behind him. “We’ve the circuit to walk.”
“There’s something we must do first, Owen.” Over O’Neill’s unusually square shoulder, Ruy saw one of the double doors of the Palais Grenville open; Sharon stepped out into the sun, blinking down at them.
“Well, gentlemen, out for a stroll?”
“Nothing would please me more, my heart of hearts, but alas, we are still on business.”
“On mysterious business,” added O’Neill. “Well, mysterious for me.”
Sharon smiled. “Well, I do love a good mystery.”
Ruy raised an exasperated eyebrow. “I should think the one you already have is sufficiently absorbing, my dear.”
“I’m an overachiever. Now, demystify the new mystery, Ruy.”
He shrugged. “Owen exaggerates at my expense. There is no mystery; there is only something I did not have time to explain to him before you distracted me with your riveting presence.”
“Nice try, Ruy. ’Splain.”
Ruy sighed. “The ‘mystery,’ as you would style it, is that I believe we must visit the Carmelites yet again. Specifically, Prioress Thérèse.”
O’Neill was frowning. “Why?”
Ruy shrugged. “Because I am not sure the questions I have put to her thus far are either far-reaching or specific enough.”
“You mean about the escape tunnel that links the convent and the palace?” Sharon asked. She suddenly seemed as energized as if she had had two cups of coffee.
“Not exactly,” Ruy explained. “On reflection, there may also be tunnels that we have overlooked.”
Sharon frowned. “You think the prioress would intentionally withhold that kind of information?”
Ruy shrugged. “I do not think so, but I cannot be sure. Furthermore, she might have heard rumors to which she gives no credence, but might be of keen interest to us.”
Sharon edged closer. Which made Ruy very happy. “What kind of rumors?”
He was so fixated on his wife that he forgot to answer for one very long, very embarrassing second. “Firstly, when we arrived, you may remember I had several very long conversations with Archbishop de Rye. Not only has he been in Besançon his entire life, but he takes pride in being the city’s de facto historian. And, having been archbishop for forty-nine years now, he has had direct access to information which is often sealed to others.
“Among the most intriguing details he shared with me is how much of Le Boucle is built upon earlier ruins. Consequently, tunnels and connections were often not so much mined as they were cunning connections between buried buildings and basements, shored up to be serviceable.”
Sharon looked at the ground between her feet. “So we could be standing right over a labyrinth of old passages.”
Ruy nodded. “As is the case with St. John’s and the cloister. So I must ask the prioress if she knows, or has heard rumors, of such tunnels and chambers under the convent.”
“What about Palais Granvelle itself?” asked Owen.
Ruy shook his head. “Construction commenced in 1534, concluded in 1547, and the process began with a specially excavated foundation for basements and cellars. So the only connection between it and any other building is the one which was put in earlier this century, to the building which occupied the ground that the convent does today.”
Sharon frowned. “So if they knocked that earlier building down, how is it that the tunnel still connects them?”
“That is where this morning’s brief conversation with the prioress became most intriguing. Just before she closed the tunnel door behind us, she remarked that the convent is not, in fact, an entirely new construction. A considerable part of it was retained from the original, older building which was refurbished, altered, and expanded. And as we learned this morning, the part which connected it to the palace tunnel was purposefully left intact. However, the parts of the convent that are even older could still be connected to other buildings by preextant tunnels and partially collapsed rooms of buried buildings.”
O’Neill put a palm to his forehead. “So our secure fallback position for the pope—the Carmelite convent—might not be so secure, after all. And it’s sure as grass is green that the prioress isn’t going to let us go poking around every room looking for hidden passages.”
Ruy shook his head. “Nor do we have the time or the manpower to do so now. So we must make appropriate inquiries of the prioress. If she has never heard such rumors regarding the convent, then it may indeed be secure. On the other hand, if she believes there may be other connections, we must reassess our plans.”
“You mean, not use the tunnel as an
emergency escape passage?” For the first time, Sharon sounded more worried than intrigued.
“No, my love; we cannot afford to wholly reject that option. But whereas we believed that the pope would be secure once within the convent, we can no longer assume that. He will require a much stronger guard contingent to accompany him there, and we must anticipate the need to evacuate him from the convent itself shortly after he arrives.”
Once again, the palace’s doors opened. Lieutenant Hastings, senior officer of the Hibernians, and his shortest trooper, Finan, strode out, caught sight of the group and moved quickly in their direction.
Ruy suppressed a sigh: will we never get across this street? But what he said was: “Lieutenant, I trust all is well?”
Hastings remained as impassive as ever. “I hope so, sir. Finan?”
The Irishman—ironically, the only one among the rank-and-file Hibernians—nodded and turned toward Sharon. “Ma’am, it might be nothing but—”
“Go ahead,” Sharon ordered. She and Ruy had come to know Finan well enough to implicitly trust not only his discretion, but his instincts.
“We’re picking up extra radio traffic in town. And if Odo is right, lots of it.”
Ruy stepped closer. “Explain.”
“Yes, sir. You’re familiar with our basic activity: comm check all stations twice a day, one coded transmission to Grantville, usually one in reply. Anything above that is a matter of tactical urgency.”
“Yes, yes,” Ruy agreed, although he hadn’t been the one to set up the radio protocols. That had been Grantville’s new Mallorcan intelligence chief, Miro.
“Well, sir, over the past few days, the ambassador’s radioman Odo has picked up a couple of other transmissions that we believe are originating either from within Besançon or very nearby.”