1636_The Vatican Sanction

by Eric Flint

  Either way, he had to get to the pope. But he had to find a guard along the way, to carry word that Owen had to assign a replacement—any replacement—who wasn’t wounded or likely to keel over from continuing blood loss. Cutting his visit to the jakes far shorter than he’d intended, he rose, cold hands going to refasten his shirt and other clothes—

  But the cold suddenly became numbness. He slumped against the side of the privy, grabbing for anything that might hold him up. The world swam. Blackness rose.

  He pushed open the door to the jakes, all pride gone in the urgent need to contact someone, to make sure that Owen, that anyone, knew that he might not make it to his post.

  He was halfway out when the vertigo hit him like a ringing tornado, swirling up from his gut into his head. His eyesight tunneled down; he flailed with his hands, but there was nothing to catch hold of.

  Eubank fell his length, his forehead whacking sharply against one of the paving stones that led from the back of the kitchen out into the convent’s winter garden.

  * * *

  Otto flinched awake as the door to the pantry shut, eyes opening to darkness. Out in the kitchen, women’s voices were discussing foods they were preparing and other topics he didn’t really understand. But none of that mattered. He had no way to escape as long as they were out there. And they might come in again, might need to search for a cheese or a sausage where he was hiding. And then what?

  Otto rose from the floor, bits of cheese and sausage falling off his shirt in the dark. He couldn’t remember how much he had eaten of each, but it was a lot. And now, it was churning in his belly, making him even more nervous.

  The door opened again; a shaft of light cut into the darkness like a knife.

  A woman—a nun, from the outline?—entered the pantry at a brisk pace, glancing about.

  Otto pushed back as far as he could—and felt the wall give slightly behind him.

  The woman or nun found what she needed, glanced back in his direction, but her glittering eyes were aimed at the floor, not at him. “Marie! We have rats again, and they’ve been at the cheese!” She stalked out. The door shut. Darkness returned.

  Otto turned as quietly and carefully as he could, felt for the part of the wall that had moved, just behind him. It shifted again when he pressed against it, but did not go back any further. It was if there was a door in the wall that would not open.

  Otto almost gasped in surprise, and felt excited delight even through his fear: another secret door! Maybe a secret passage to freedom! Just like in the stories that Heinz told him on cold nights around the campfire when he found it hard to sleep. He almost shed a tear; he missed Heinz. He’d never been separated from him for this long in—well, maybe in forever. And how would he find him once he was free?

  Otto put his big, fleshy lips together until they felt hard. If he was going to find Heinz, he had to get out first. And that meant getting through the secret door. But if he hit it hard, then the nuns might hear. So, bracing his feet against the floor, he leaned against the secret door and pushed, both with his legs and his shoulders. The wall began to bend inward a little more—

  It gave way with a rasping squeal. Otto, unable to catch himself in time, fell into an even darker passage of some kind. Almost immediately, he felt the urge to cough: dust had risen up around him, like that one time he had helped Heinz open a big stone casket in a building filled with them, to get something from a corpse. An uncle of his. Except Otto wondered how Heinz would have an uncle with a Spanish name.

  Otto stood up, tried to close the door, but it wouldn’t stay shut. In the dim light that came under the pantry door, he saw why: the outline of a twisted and snapped lock told him that, yet again, he’d broken something that wasn’t his. Well, Heinz wasn’t here to yell at him, and there wasn’t anyone to tell, so he didn’t need to worry about that. But if he did get hungry again…he reached back into the pantry, grabbed the small cheese he’d been eating when he got so full he had fallen asleep. The knife fell out; he leaned in, picked it up, closed the door softly.

  Otto felt along the wall to his right, back in the direction of the kitchen. It ended after three feet. No way out there. He turned, felt along the other wall for five, ten, fifteen feet—and almost cried out when his shin hit something. He reached down and felt around.

  Stairs. And small bones. About the size of a rat’s or even a cat’s. And so much dust that—

  Otto sneezed, scolded himself. He had to stay quiet if he was going to escape!

  He extended his foot to detect the next riser. And so, step by step, Otto began ascending the stairs, which were barely any broader than he was.

  * * *

  Maffeo Barberini, known better as Urban VIII, unleashed his secret weapon.

  He pouted.

  It was an excellent pout; no quiver, but just soft enough to be expressive and yet remain manly.

  Well, as manly as any pout could be.

  Urban even felt a slight tinge of guilt as he used it. It was a powerful weapon against devout Catholics, and had moved the hardened hearts of many a bishop and priest. But this might be overkill, he admitted to himself, akin to using a cannon to kill a mouse.

  Urban looked up to see what effect it had had.

  Daniel O’Dempsey, who everyone else seemed to call Danny O’Dee, had flushed a bright crimson, a trait that seemed particularly pronounced among the fairer-complected Irish and Scottish. “Your Holiness, as God is my witness, please believe me: if I could, I’d get you those pills. But I can’t leave you; I am under orders.” He tapped a nervous foot. “And I’m not supposed to be alone here. A sergeant, probably Eubank, was to be here by now.”

  Urban assessed the amount of desperation in the young man’s tone, estimated that the time was right to add in another level of complexity and stress. “You and the sergeant have been posted here to prevent me from being killed, correct?”

  “Aye—yes, Your Holiness. That’s the truth of it.”

  “Then you must make a decision, Daniel.”

  “Your Holiness?”

  “How do you prefer I die?”

  “What—what are you talkin’ about, Your Holiness?!”

  Urban shrugged. “Well, I am feeling faint, which may be a sign of increased pressure upon my heart. In which case, I need the tablets that Ambassadora Nichols said I should ingest in such a circumstance. Otherwise, my heart might stop. I did not wish to burden you with this information, but either you shall go and get the tablets from Ambassadora Nichols, or you shall stay here to protect me against imaginary assassins and watch me as I very possibly die.”

  Urban regretted creating this terrible dilemma for the poor young Irishman—he seemed a decent fellow and as devout as one could wish—but the alternative was intolerable. Urban had sacrificed every last shred of pride but this most basic of human needs for privacy. And once it became obvious that the young Irishman would not, under any circumstances, leave him unobserved for even a scant second, well, a little white lie surely wouldn’t harm anyone. Given the layers of guards between Urban and any assassins—pairs of them at every entrance in the convent, at every major intersection of halls, and at the bottom of the staircase—it was a certainty that he was quite safe without having a young fellow within the room, and within arm’s length, at that. A pope had the right to more dignity than that, surely! “You must choose, Daniel. But I implore you: please get the tablets. I feel weak.”

  Daniel O’Dempsey seemed ready to bite himself in a fit of hopeless frustration and uncertainty, and then finally bolted from the room, crying over his shoulder, “Hide under the bed. Er…an’ it please you. Your Holiness.” By which time his feet were thumping down the stairs.

  Urban sighed, smiled, rose, walked to his bed to fetch his chamberpot.

  After all, even popes had the right to relieve themselves in private.

  * * *

  Otto rounded the corner on the landing and immediately smelled the change in the air: not so dank or dusty. The c
hange was subtle, but unmistakable. At least to his nose.

  He felt his way quickly up the staircase, felt a landing spread out under one searching hand as he clutched his food and utensil to his chest with the other. And there was a draft from the left. He felt along that wall and his fingers hit the side of another secret door, set flush with the wall. At last! The way out!

  Feeling around eagerly, he located the lock, a simple turnbolt. He rotated it one-half counterclockwise turn and tugged inward.

  Clothes. Shirts, trousers, cassocks were arrayed in front of him as if he was on the edge of a jungle grown by tailors. He put a hand between two of the cassocks, parted them, saw another door. But this one was very light and wooden. And suddenly Otto understood: this secret door opened into the back of some kind of wardrobe. How clever! Just like in some of Heinz’s stories, and like the one in the palace!

  He reached for the door, turned the small oval knob, pushed it outward and almost gasped for joy when light and fresh air came in. Otto stepped through the wardrobe, imagining how, for once, it would be Heinz who would sit openmouthed and eager when he told the story of his escape through a secret door hidden in the back of a wardrobe!

  * * *

  Urban straightened, mildly delighted to find that one of the many servants had apparently changed the chamber pot when he wasn’t looking. Being constantly in peril gave one a renewed, almost childlike appreciation for various small conveniences and comforts.

  The door creaked open, and Urban prepared to make his apologies to young Daniel O’Dempsey—but then realized it wasn’t the door to the hallway that had opened. It was, improbably, the door to the wardrobe. As Urban straightened in surprise, a large, round-shouldered man emerged from it, scratching his ass and carrying a much-diminished round of cheese, a knife embedded in it.

  Both as a young noble and a rising cleric, Maffeo Barberini had always prided himself on never being at a loss for words. But this time, he could not manage more than a surprised splutter before realizing that he should make no noise whatsoever. However bizarre this near-giant’s appearance was, his first reaction should not have been one of wonder at the surreality of his emergence from the wardrobe, but of realizing the unmitigated danger it represented.

  The large, soft-lipped man—almost an ogre in build and hirsutism—had heard the pope. His small round head turned around; his eyes fixed on Urban, first surprised, then wondering.

  Urban remained motionless, but his eyes moved swiftly across the other’s clothing: the partial livery of the palace staff, the type worn by hostlers and victualers. But the staff of the palace had no business here in the convent, which meant—

  Urban’s eyes flicked toward the knife, and before he could stop the reflex, his eyes widened and he took a step backward. Which quickened a memory he had not recalled in many decades—

  When he was but thirteen, the Barberinis had been invited to visit the estate of a prospective business partner in the Little Dolomites. Naturally, Maffeo and his brothers had wanted to go exploring, hoping to encounter good game that they might bring to table. But the oldest of the guides had been full of sour warnings, one of which had been about the more dangerous animals they might encounter in the upslope forests.

  “Should you come upon a black bear, young signor,” the gray-locked borderer had warned with slow gravity, “make no hasty movements. When it is calm, you may calmly leave. Do not run until it can no longer see you. And above all, show no fear.”

  But, Urban realized, he had shown fear.

  The bear awakened in the large man’s eyes. Surprise became almost mindless ferocity, and with a single growled word that sounded like, “Evilpope,” the ogre leaped forward with surprising speed.

  The knife came out of its cheese scabbard. Urban tried keeping his face to his attacker while retreating, felt his heel catch upon the rear hem of his gilt cassock, went down backwards, hit the base of his skull against the hardwood floor.

  A single dazed moment. Then his vision straightened and he tried to rise—just as the ogre leaped upon him and drove the knife down into his chest.

  Again and again and again.

  * * *

  Sharon heard the repetitive thumping halfway down the stairs from the pope’s room. “C’mon!” she cried and began racing upward, Larry Mazzare at her heels.

  But Danny O’Dee sped past them like they were standing still. Sprinting up two risers at a time, he didn’t stop when he reached the door: he burst straight through. As they got to the head of the stairs, he let out an animal howl.

  Sharon raced to the door, shoulder to shoulder with Larry and just three steps ahead of the guards from the bottom of the stairs, but was stunned into immobility on the threshold.

  There was a large man in the middle of the room, rising from the bloodied form of Urban VIII, turning toward Danny O’Dee, menacing him with what looked like an absurdly small paring knife.

  Danny raised his pepperbox—

  —“NO!” yelled Sharon in chorus with Larry—

  —as Danny fired twice before the gun jammed. The big man staggered back a step, almost tripping over Urban, from whose lips blood was dribbling.

  Larry rushed in to grab Danny, but was a moment too late. The young Irishman let out a tortured scream-sob as he drew his sabre into a rising backhand cut that sliced a groove into the ogre’s chest, opened his cheek, bisected an eye and raised up a patch of his scalp. The huge man bellowed—more like a bull than a human—and struck out with the knife that was almost unnoticeable in his immense fist.

  Danny O’Dee jumped aside, feinted a cut to the body, but dropped his wrist at the last moment: the faint whistle of his sword ended with a dull thud as it hit the assassin’s femur.

  Sharon angled around toward Urban, who seemed—impossibly—alive. Larry couldn’t get close to Danny without endangering him—and was then pushed aside and to his knees as the other two Wild Geese made room to draw their swords and help their comrade.

  But they were not swift enough: Danny had used what was left of the sweeping momentum of his sabre to slide it out of the wound as the big man shrieked with pain and staggered back, clutching at his spouting leg with one hand and waving his knife with the other. Danny, tears streaming down his face, leaped forward, removed two of the ogre’s fingers—and the knife—with his blade, then swiftly rolled his wrist and thrust the full length of the steel into and through the great fleshy chest before him.

  The big man did not scream but whimpered and then fell off the blade, blood gouting up as he crashed to the floor.

  By then, Sharon was on her knees at Urban’s side and had to hold back her own tears: the pope was bleeding too quickly from nearly a dozen wounds in his chest. Both lungs were flooding and with three sucking chest wounds, there was nothing she could do in time. “Larry,” she murmured. “Come here. Quickly.”

  Larry was there, asking as he came, “Why aren’t you—?” And then he saw what Sharon had and fell quiet. “Your Holiness.”

  No response. Sharon, startling out of her daze, grasped for and found a pulse: steady but fading.

  Larry leaned in toward the pope. “Maffeo. Maffeo Barberini!”

  Urban’s eyes flickered open, as if he’d been on the verge of a very deep sleep. “Lawrence. How good that you are here.”

  “Don’t talk. We have to try—”

  “Lawrence, I am called by God. I go without regret. But I go with shame.”

  “Shame? Why?”

  “Be-because I tricked that poor young boy into leaving me alone.” Urban laughed, coughed up a jet of alarmingly bright blood. “Pride and a lie. Always my downfall. You’d think I’d have learned by now.” He coughed again. Sharon was surprised to see Larry turn his head away, and then realized, with a painful catch in her throat, that he wanted to ensure that Urban would not see, or feel the dripping of, his tears. “Your Holiness…my friend…I must ask: should the circular—?”

  Urban burbled blood as he shook his head, his eyes closin
g momentarily. “The circular stands as written. Unless you feel it needs more…more…more revision.” He coughed out the words.

  Larry turned back to face the pope. “No: it is a great document, a great legacy.”

  Urban may have smiled. His eyes were open but as blank as a blind man’s. “Then let its words be my last.”

  Larry nodded, squinting against the tears. “Your Holiness, may I offer you the rite of extreme unction?”

  Urban’s only response was a sigh. And then silence, his chest still.

  Sharon felt the thin pulse falter and stop. “He’s gone.”

  * * *

  Pedro Dolor looked down upon the center of the Buckle from his attic perch. He had not anticipated how quickly the search for other suspected assassins would be mounted. Before dawn, the attic adjoining his safe room had been visited by imperiously thumping troops, whose words and gaits were marked more by self-importance than competence. Clearly, Burgundians. Just as he had expected.

  So Dolor had emerged earlier than he originally planned, deeming it wise to get a feel for the mood in the city and listen to the radio. Perhaps he would be able to leave sooner than he had thought. But he wouldn’t be able to determine that immediately. The throngs who had turned out to see, or at least get close to, Urban’s celebration of the Pentecost service would have to diminish. So he settled in for a light lunch and some slow careful stretching of his muscles.

  Just when he thought the streets had settled down enough that he might be able to read the social undercurrents that ran through them, there was some kind of commotion near the entrance to the priory. He could not make out exactly what it was: the front of the convent faced away from him. However, he had seen guards and servants sprinting there in response to an apparently urgent summons. And then all was quiet, but the guards were both alert and subtly agitated.

  Radio on, Dolor began turning slowly through the frequencies. He soon detected an unprecedented flurry of secure radio traffic, both outbound and then inbound, in one of the Grantville codes he had not yet been able to crack. And then nothing. It became a Sunday like any other.