by Eric Flint
Another pause, but not quite pregnant. When Stearns’ voice came back it was somewhat mollified. “Oh. You’re not? Then why are you going?”
“To make sure that the new mission is a success. Because if we can’t both protect the consistory and keep it from revealing Urban’s death to the rest of the world, we’ll have an even bigger disaster. So, I figured that this time, I should go and oversee it myself. Because we can’t afford another failure, can we?”
There was a silence on the line, then: “Well, if you’re going, you might as well take a few notes for when you speak to Bernhard.”
“Me? I should speak to Duke Bernhard? But why? Dr. Nichols is the ambassador.”
“Yes, but she’s the ambassador to the papacy. Which is job enough, particularly if Bedmar gets the miter. He’s a tough customer and is not as big a fan of up-timer knowledge and influence as Urban was. So Sharon is going to have her hands full. You, on the other hand, are going to have to dance around Bernhard and keep him quiet. Which will mean keeping him happy, but without giving him the farm in the process. That kind of diplomatic wrangling isn’t exactly in your job description, of course.”
“No,” agreed Miro, “but it would be excellent cover, to go as a special envoy to Burgundy.”
“Well, yeah, how about that?” Stearns sounded quite pleased with himself. “You going to go alone?”
Miro nodded his head, for which he immediately chided himself: Stearns was hundreds of miles away. “Yes.”
“That might be a pretty hefty project to handle on your own, Estuban.”
Miro smiled. “I only said I am traveling alone. Fortunately, I already have agents on the ground.”
* * *
Kuhlman, one of the Hibernians’ apprentice wireless operators, looked up when Finan came into the command center in the basement of the abbey. “Boss-man wants a radio check from you.”
“Which Boss-Man? North or Donovan?”
“Donovan. Odd frequency he gave for the radio check, though.” Kuhlman got up, handed the slip of paper to Finan.
The little corporal read it, shrugged. “Always keepin’ us on our toes, I guess.” Finan took the seat Kuhlman had vacated, began retuning the radio. “Yeh might as well take a break, Marcus. I could be at this a while.”
“You wouldn’t mind watching the post for me?” Kuhlman looked like he was ready to run out the door.
“Nah. Where else am I going to go, anyhow?” Finan began tapping his transmission code. “Now, be off with yeh.”
Kuhlman nodded his thanks and bolted.
Finan finished entering his code and leaned back. As he expected, he didn’t have long to wait. The clacker started chattering out the secure-coded message:
MESSAGE BEGINS.
TO FINAN, C., CORPORAL, HIBERNIAN MERCENARY BATTALION. STOP. YOUR EYES ONLY. STOP. REMAIN ADJUTANT TO AMBASSADOR NICHOLS. STOP. NEW MISSION REQUIRES SECURE SEQUESTRATION AND OVERSIGHT OF CONSISTORY. STOP. ACTIVATE AGENTS DELTA AND OMEGA TO PROVIDE ASSISTANCE. STOP. CONTACT DONOVAN IN EVENT HASTINGS ATTEMPTS TO REASSIGN YOU. STOP. AM ARRIVING BY AIR WITHIN 24 HOURS. STOP. IF I AM DELAYED, NEXT CONTACT CODE IS FT9XV. STOP. SIGN IS GRAY. STOP. COUNTERSIGN IS ASH. STOP. ESTUBAN MIRO.
END.
* * *
The man who still called himself Pedro Dolor raised one eyebrow when, upon turning the final corner separating him from the Pont Battant, he discovered a line of persons waiting to cross the river and depart Besançon. Just before the old Roman bridge, a cluster of soldiers, mostly Wild Geese and Hibernians, formed a gauntlet through which everyone had to pass.
A dragnet. Dolor shifted his rucksack, dusted another trace of quicklime from its bottom, and suppressed a pleased smile. There was no single definitive reason to validate the conjecture that rose up when he saw this attempt to detect departing assassins, but, after long years in his bloodstained and blackhearted trade, he had learned that there is a rhythm that builds in the wake of incidents like successful assassinations. In the aftermath of such events, there evolves a pattern in the demeanor, reactions, and even posture of those who have been apprised of the disaster, a mood that communicates itself from whatever inner circle first handles the confidential information and gives appropriate orders, on down to the lowly spear-carriers who carry out those orders without any real understanding of why they were given. And if Pedro Dolor’s instincts were correct, this dragnet signified that Urban VIII had in fact perished, albeit not during the attack itself.
That provisional realization sent a pang of surprising regret through him. It was a shame that it had to be done, really, particularly since Urban had repudiated his past nepotism and materialism, and had seemed to genuinely desire reconciliation among many faiths. But there had to be a trail of blood that led to Madrid. And, sadly, Urban’s rehabilitation and embrace of true brotherly love was more likely to be emulated because of his martyred example rather than his late exhortations—which sharply contrasted with his deeds as the pope most associated with the Catholic atrocities of the last ten years.
Even so, Dolor did not revel in Urban’s probable death. In fact, he discovered that, for whatever small difference it made, he was glad that it had not been his own hand that struck the presumed mortal blow. Still, it was also cheering to speculate that his mission had not been a complete failure. Only time would tell: time that Pedro Dolor would spend on a circuitous road back to the Mediterranean as he waited for news of Urban’s final fate to overtake him.
And so, guide his next action and thus, his next destination.
* * *
Owen Roe O’Neill turned to Ruy Sanchez and said flatly: “Ruy, go home.”
Ruy acted as though he had no idea what his friend might be referring to.
Owen rolled his eyes: it was not one of the faux-hidalgo’s best performances. It was, rather, very possibly his worst. “That arm is still inflamed. Yer white as a banshee. And for a man of yer complexion, that’s truly saying something. So go home.”
Ruy shook his head. “I will wait until the end of this watch. It is not long. And the colloquists have almost all departed.”
Owen elected not to point out what Ruy would certainly have remembered had he been right for duty: that they were screening for murderous thugs, not sending clerics on their way home. “Then stay the watch, if yeh must. But there’s no reason for both of us t’be on our feet. You sit, now. When your turn comes, I’ll get you to your lazy feet again. The men are doing all the work, anyway. We’re just wielding the whip, and one whip is plenty.”
Ruy muttered something about sitting higher so he could still observe the departure line, found a chair, sat down heavily.
O’Neill turned back toward the line, ensuring that his men were reasonably thorough in their checks. They were, and they certainly had an eye for overtly shady-looking characters. But what most of them lacked was a sense of how a subtler criminal would adopt an appearance as unremarkable and nondescript as possible.
Like the fellow who’d just come abreast of Tone Grogan, waiting while the Irishman sorted through his knapsack. He’d be exactly the kind of person you wouldn’t look at twice: medium height, medium build, light brown or hazel eyes, and hard to see how fit he was in his loose tradesman’s clothes. The only noteworthy thing was that he was well-groomed, particularly for his station.
One by one, Grogan was taking equally uninteresting items out of the man’s ruck: a plate, a spoon, a pair of old sandals, a comb, a bar of coarse brown soap—
Owen felt his thoughts quicken, jolted out of the rut they had fallen into beneath the unrelenting sun and the unending parade of completely innocuous clerics and common folk. For so well-groomed a commoner, the man had a surprisingly modest collection of hygiene-related items.
“Hold there,” he called to Grogan, watching, as he did, for any change in the posture or demeanor of the average-looking man. There was none.
As Grogan finished emptying the rest of the ruck’s wholly unremarkable contents, Owen looked in the man�
�s eyes. Yes, they were hazel, and that was all he could really say about them. Which was a bit odd: O’Neill prided himself on being able to tell a great deal about a man by looking in his eyes, particularly regarding intelligence or the lack of it. In this case, the eyes were unreadable—so much so, that he felt a small tingle of doubt that it could be natural. “You keep yourself very presentable, I see.”
The man nodded. “I try.”
“So I’m wonderin’ how yeh manage to remain so clean and well-groomed with no more’n that?” Owen hooked a thumb at the soap and comb laying on the table before Grogan.
The man shrugged. “It’s difficult with those. But in the city, a man may spend a sou or so, and do much better.”
Well, that made sense. And he wouldn’t be the first commoner who’d suffered enough at the hands of soldiers or aristocrats to learn how to become unreadable. “I see. Fair journey, then.”
Grogan finished reloading the ruck, handed it across to the man—which was when Owen noticed a dusty smear along one of the shoulder straps. “Let’s have it here,” he said, intercepting the sack. He ran a finger along the dust, raised it to his nose, touched the powder-fine deposit with his tongue. “This is quicklime, isn’t it?” O’Neill remembered what had been found in the basement next to the priory and was suddenly and coolly very conscious of the precise location and angle of his sword hilt relative to his right hand.
The man nodded. “Yes.” He might have been a little perplexed. “I’m an assistant to stonemasons, sometimes.”
“And other times?”
The man seemed to repress a grimace. “I carry things. I dig. I can use a hammer well enough.” He ended with a small, expressive shrug.
O’Neill looked for any hint of prevarication in the man’s face as he felt down around the lining of the bag. Nothing unusual in either place. He palmed the spoon before he closed the bag. He handed it back to the man by its strap. “Be on your way, then.”
The man took his rucksack carefully, slowly, as if moving swiftly might extend the unwanted attention from the armed men. He offered a shallow nod of respect, turned, walked away.
O’Neill let him get five paces before yelling, “Hey, you!” As the fellow turned, Owen threw the spoon at him. The man blinked, and just barely caught it, bobbling it before firmly grabbing it with his right hand.
His right hand. Not his left, O’Neill noted. Well, so much for finding the missing assassin. “Sorry for the trouble,” he muttered. He turned back to the line a moment after the man turned back to his own path out of the city.
And who, facing away from Owen Roe O’Neill, indulged himself with a small, very brief smile.
* * *
Gaspar de Borja y Velasco stared angrily at the radio. It remained silent. As it had for more than two days now. He felt rage building in him anew. “It is possible, Maculani, that at this, the penultimate hour, our men go silent? Could they have been caught?”
Maculani rubbed his heavy nose. “Only time will tell, Your Eminence.”
“I do not expect time to tell!” Borja snapped. “I expect that foppish whelp de Requesens to tell. Or the other one, the Swiss that you recommended. But silence? We had regular communications with the handlers of both groups! Both! Is it possible that they could both have been discovered? Or defeated?”
Maculani paused, seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “Without having any knowledge, all things are possible, Your Eminence. But that does not mean that all things are likely. As you point out, they were in regular communication right up until they advised us that the moment for them to strike might be at hand. If they did so, and escaped, they are unlikely to be able to stop long enough to set up their apparatus to send a signal. But until they signal, we cannot know that either. So we must wait.”
“Yes, yes, Maculani. I know it is so. You may go; I have no further need of you today.”
“As you wish, Your Eminence. Until tomorrow, then.” Maculani bowed himself out of the large, wood-paneled office.
Borja turned his chair the other direction, looked out the window at the increasingly sluggish Tevere, then glanced at the wheeled serving cart at his side. A decanter of rioja sat upon it, waiting to finish breathing. It would be best in half an hour, and that was, after all, a more appropriate time to indulge in more than a small glass. But with his trials and tribulations unresolved, Borja saw in the wine both strength and consolation, a reinforcement of both the determination and the calm required to resolve to try again in the event that Urban had still not been eliminated.
Borja needed that calm, that determination, immediately, not in half an hour. He grasped the decanter hastily, but poured the wine out slowly, anticipating and watching it fill his crystal goblet with a rich, dark red. It reminded him of blood.
A pope’s blood.
* * *
Sharon Nichols was surprised, but also reassured, by the speed with which Ruy rose from the dinner table in the refectory of the chapter house.
He offered his right arm. “Shall we take in the evening air, my love?”
Sharon rose, lightly, gracefully. “I thought you’d never ask.”
As they exited, she stole a quick glance at where his other arm hung across his chest in a sling. Better: much better. Three hours ago, Ruy had returned from manning the outbound traffic checkpoint at the Pont Battant. He was escorted by two Burgundians whom Owen had sent along for the express purpose of making sure he went straight to his physician wife. And it was a good thing he did: Ruy had arrived drawn, pale, and, for him, alarmingly weak. But once in the cool of the basement, and with a little surgical prompting, the wound in his left arm finally drained, his fever dropped, and his appetite returned. Given his almost inhuman constitution, he had been back to his old self by dinner, of which he had two helpings.
They emerged into the cloister just as the sun was setting. Burnished gold glinted off the ivy that twined about and climbed the columns all along the southern colonnade. Evening flowers released their scents as birds dipped and swooped after invisible insects.
“It’s so peaceful,” Sharon murmured.
“Blessedly so, yes.”
After they had walked the length of the first colonnade, Ruy led her gently out into the diagonal that bisected the garden: not their usual path, but welcome.
“I wonder what comes next?” Sharon whispered, just before they reached the small central fountain.
“Who can tell?” Ruy smiled. “For the present, I am satisfied to be walking in a garden. With you.”
Sharon kept herself from starting and staring. It was not Ruy’s typical tone. It was not filled with his usual buoyance, or the alternative low-voiced prelude to wooing. It was reflective and—what?—relieved? Content? Not tones Sharon had come to associate with her husband.
Then he turned, his smile dimming but his eyes unusually still and expressive, giving them the appearance of being larger than usual. And Sharon understood that this night, the mix of lewd innuendo and playfulness that often marked their time together would remain absent. In its place, there was a quiet thoroughness of glance and even, arm to arm, touch. It seemed as if the seriousness of what had recently transpired—and of what now had to be concealed—had pervaded this night like the scents of the flowers.
Or, perhaps, more like the premonitions of ghosts from a future where the lives of thousands of innocents could yet be forfeit due to Urban’s murder, as well as the perfidious deeds which had preceded, and would surely follow, it.
Together, in silence, Sharon and Ruy walked.
Cast of Characters
Achille d’Estampes de Valençay, cardinal in pectore, captain of France, knight of the Sovereign Order of Malta
Alfonso de la Cueva-Benavides y Mendoza-Carrillo (formerly Marqués de Bedmar), cardinal-protector of, and Spain’s special envoy to, the Spanish Lowlands
Cormac Finan, corporal in the Hibernian Mercenary Battalion, bodyguard and communications specialist for Sharon Nichols
Da
niel O’ Dempsey, soldier in the O’Neill tercio of the Wild Geese
Estève Gasquet, Borja’s chief assassin from Provence
Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld, Jesuit, assistant to the father general
Gaspar de Borja y Velasco, cardinal, would-be pope
Gaspar de Guzman, count-duke of Olivares
Giancarlo de Medici, cardinal in pectore and nephew of Claudia de Medici of Tyrol
Ignaz von Meggen, freiherr of the Swiss Cantons, descendant of a Papal Guard commander
Javier de Requesens y Ercilla, Spanish intelligencer and handler of Borja’s assassination team
Lawrence Mazzare, up-time priest, now cardinal-protector of the USE
Luke Wadding, cardinal, Franciscan theologian, and former Guardian of the College at St. Isidore’s
Maffeo Barberini, Pope Urban VIII
Marwin Hastings, senior lieutenant in the Hibernian Mercenary Battalion
Muzio Vitelleschi, father general of the Society of Jesus (Jesuits)
Norwin Eischoll, Borja’s chief assassin from the Swiss Cantons
Owen Roe O’Neill, colonel of the Wild Geese and chief of the Papal Guard
Pedro Dolor, intelligence operative for Count-Duke Olivares
Rombaldo de Gonzaga, chief of Pedro Dolor’s assassins
Ruy Sanchez de Ortiz y Casador, colonel and chief of Papal Security, former Spanish officer and husband of Sharon Nichols
Sharon Nichols, up-time EMT/physician and ambassador to Rome, wife of Ruy Sanchez de Ortiz y Casador
Turlough Eubank, sergeant de campo temporarily assigned to the O’Neill tercio of the Wild Geese
Vincenzo Maculani, bishop, secretary and executive to Borja, former chief inquisitor