Magnificat

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Dame Leonie Purcell was waiting for them, a light tea much the same as she had served to Liang laid out, though it was more appropriate for four in the afternoon than four in the morning. Aside from faint shadows under her large, burnt-toast-colored eyes, there was nothing about her dress or behavior to suggest there was anything unusual about the hour or occasion of their meeting. After Hastings left them alone she turned to Cardinal Mendosa and offered him a plate of scones. “We have clotted cream, of course, and preserves.”

  “This is excellent,” said Cardinal Mendosa. “I am truly most appreciative, Dame Leonie.”

  “Thank you, Your Eminence.” She looked over toward Willie Foot. “Was it a good flight?”

  Willie always found it difficult to make small-talk with Leonie. He nodded several times, and was relieved when Cardinal Mendosa took over for him. “We had a few bumps, naturally. You kind of expect that, coming so far. But for the most part it was uneventful. They had two movies and an endless parade of advertisements to entertain us.” He glanced over at Willie, a little puzzled by his friend’s discomfort. “I’ve been trying to figure out what time it is. I’m afraid I tend to get jet lag—more now than when I was younger. It takes this body a while to catch up with itself. I don’t know what the arrangements you’ve made are, but—”

  Dame Leonie beamed at him. “Let me tell you what has been arranged. There has been short notice, but as you are traveling without entourage, it was not too hard to make accommodations. Tomorrow night you will go from here into Guangzhou, privately, of course. You will stay with a Danish importer who maintains a house there. He is very discreet and will make sure no information about his visitors leaks out. The next morning you will be driven northwest into Szechwan Province. It is a very long drive even with the new Revolutionary Highway. It is roughly six hundred miles from Guangzhou to Congqing, and over two hundred more to Hongya. I assume you will need three days to make the journey, given the state of the highway and the realities of fuel and lodgings. All those things have been arranged, transportation and places to stay. Provided you do not draw attention to yourselves, there is no reason for this little expedition of yours not to go smoothly.” She looked over at Willie. “I wish I could go along.”

  “We’d have lots of attention then. The British Ambassadress to Hong Kong larking about central China with a reporter and a Texan Cardinal. No. You stay here. It’s too risky,” said Willie softly. “I’ll see you when we get back.” He made no move toward her, but watching them, Cardinal Mendosa had the oddest notion that they had kissed.

  Her cheeks were a bit pinker as Dame Leonie turned back to Cardinal Mendosa. “You will have two drivers, and in Dushan there will be a second car if you require it.” She regarded Cardinal Mendosa steadily. “This may be a tactless question, but what is so important about this Chinese widow that a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church is seeking her out?”

  Cardinal Mendosa wondered if the room was bugged and hesitated to speak bluntly because of his doubts. “I have to discuss a few matters with her,” he answered.

  Dame Leonie nodded. “Perhaps you’ll tell me what they are if you have the responses you are seeking. On your way back.”

  “Possibly,” said Cardinal Mendosa, praying that he would be able to tell her news that would shock the world. “I hope I will be able to.” He tried unsuccessfully to conceal a yawn. “Forgive me. That travel’s getting the better of me. I’m starting to nod off, and I can’t keep my thoughts straight.” He took a generous swig of tea. “I hope you will not find me inexcusably rude if I ask to be shown to my room? I’m quite tired. It would be worse if I fell asleep over the crumpets, wouldn’t it?”

  “Certainly, Eminence,” she said, rising and going to the old-fashioned bell-pull to summon her butler. “I wasn’t sure how you prefer to deal with jet lag. There are those who want to stay up until they are driven to sleep.”

  “Well, up or down, it’s getting hard to keep two thoughts together. So I’ll thank you for this wonderful late-night snack, and I’ll look forward to seeing you at late lunch, shall we say?” He bent over her hand but did not actually kiss it.

  Hastings opened the door and said, “If you will follow me, Your Eminence?”

  When Cardinal Mendosa was gone, Leonie came back and sat opposite Willie. “He’s quite charming.”

  “That he is,” said Willie, wishing he dared to take her into his arms again.

  “I wonder how much of his Texas mannerisms are affectations and how many are real?” she asked, speaking as much to herself as to him.

  “Well, he can lay them on very thickly; I’ve seen him do it.” He knew how much Cardinal Mendosa like keeping others off-balance. “He can also set them aside. He’s no naive wild-west cowboy, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Oh, no. That much was obvious.” She gave a small, decisive shake of her head. “I wasn’t thinking that at all.” When she looked at Willie again her expression had changed. “I have missed you.”

  “Leonie—” he cautioned, making a gesture to remind her of the danger of being overheard. “I don’t think—”

  “I haven’t had anyone to go to films with, no one who shares my interests in them. It’s quite…frustrating. And you know my husband’s tastes don’t run to films.” It was their code: she was telling him she had been celibate since he left.

  “I’m…sorry to hear that. But I’m glad I was of some value to you.” He stared down at his milky tea. “I didn’t mean that quite the way it came out.”

  “I realize that,” she said, and indicated the tea tray. “Is there anything else you want here?”

  “Yes, there is,” he said, looking directly at her. “But I think I’d better follow Mendosa’s example and get some rest. We’re going to have a long couple of days.” He put his teacup aside and rose. “I don’t know—there’s something about being around Americans. They rub off on me. I start catching their slang. It’s quite dreadful.”

  “A tough break,” she said, trying to sound like a film gangster.

  He allowed himself one touch. His fingers brushed down her cheek to her jaw. His gangster accent was not much better than hers. “Yeah. Ain’t it just.”

  * * *

  Jeffrey, Cardinal Durand of Baltimore sat in his satin cassock across the desk from the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and did his best to put the fellow at ease, a task that taxed his skills more than he liked to admit. He had already spoken with the man’s advisor in order to secure their meeting, and realized that if the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State could be convinced to help them, he would have two more such interviews ahead of him. “You can understand why the conclave has been at an impasse.”

  “No,” said Tyler Mather, making no effort to cooperate with the Cardinal. He touched his tie-tack to activate his micro-recorder. “I doubt anyone in Washington understands what’s going on with the conclave.”

  “Well,” said Cardinal Durand, growing flustered too early on, “I should think it’s obvious, with two Popes dead so close together.”

  “Not if it serves your purpose,” said Mather, making no apology for his indirect accusation.

  “It does not serve the purposes of the Church, believe me,” said Cardinal Durand with asperity. He decided that he was too old for these verbal chess games.

  “If you say so,” Mather responded neutrally.

  Cardinal Durand took another tack. “You know, back when I was still a Catholic chaplain, during the Korean War, I used to hear men ask what it was supposed to be all about. They were maimed and dying, no older than I was: I was just a kid myself, and I didn’t have any answers for them, except that in some incomprehensible way, it was the Will of God.”

  “And you’re saying that two dead Popes are the Will of God?” Mather challenged. “That’s a pretty facile statement, Your Eminence.”

  “It’s not intended to be.” He shoved his chair back a little so he could look out of his office window at the garden. “You can’t imagine how much we all
wish this were over and behind us. No one knows.”

  “Sure,” said Mather, his handsome, mask-like face revealing nothing.

  Cardinal Durand turned back to Mather. “There are reasons for these difficulties, just as there are reasons for the Church to ask the United States to assure us of their support of the new Pope, whoever it may be.” This was the part he hated most, the bargaining and fencing.

  “You know we can’t do that, Your Eminence,” said Mather.

  “Yes you can,” Cardinal Durand countered with more heat. “It might not be official, but if the USA recognizes its diplomatic link to the Vatican and accepts the Pope, no matter who is elevated—well, good heavens, man, it’s still the Catholic Church!—then much of the unrest we fear may attend this new election will be averted.”

  “The liberals and the conservatives are slugging it out, are they?” asked Mather. “That might account for your recess.”

  “There have been recesses in the conclave before,” said Cardinal Durand stiffly. “This is hardly the first time the Cardinals have instituted this kind of…hiatus in their deliberations.”

  “Oh, come on, Your Eminence,” said Mather at his most patronizing. “In the Middle Ages because it took half a year to get to Rome? Or during the Crusades when a third of the Bishops and Archbishops were away at war in the Holy Land? This is 1997, Your Eminence, and those conditions don’t apply any more.” He toyed with the glass of superb sherry Cardinal Durand had served him.

  “There are other difficulties,” said Cardinal Durand.

  “Dead Popes,” said Mather with satisfaction. “Your Eminence, there’s no reason to con me. You’re afraid you’re going to end up with one of those quasi-Neo-Communists in the driver’s seat, and you don’t want Europe and the U.S. to cut up hard over it. That’s it, right?”

  “In part,” Cardinal Durand allowed.

  “Well, you know there’s nothing we can do. Separation of Church and State, and all that. You get one of those Neo-Communists, or Neo-Fascists in there, we’ll do our best to accommodate it; we appreciate your telling us about it but it seems pretty obvious already. You want my opinion, you elect that Cardinal Cadini and work it out while he charms everyone.”

  “That was what John XXIII was supposed to do, and you remember how he was,” said Cardinal Durand. “Besides, Cardinal Cadini has already disqualified himself from consideration due to his age. He has informed us all that he does not want to be another short-term Pope when there have been so many questions about the deaths of Urban and Celestine.” He gave a short, explosive sigh. “Five other Cardinals have made similar requests and for the same reasons.”

  “Shows some sense,” Mather approved, and had the last of his sherry. “Well, those of us at State are betting on Cardinal Gemme. He’s a little too left and too worldly for our tastes but he’s up-to-date on everything and he’s a whiz with the newsmedia.”

  “So he is,” said Cardinal Durand, showing a mild distaste for the charismatic French Cardinal.

  “You could do worse. It could be that Hungarian.” He set down the crystal glass. “The Neo-Communists would approve of Gemme. He’s close enough to most of them in ideology but he isn’t round-the-bend, the way some of the South Americans are. That’s got us upset, if you want to know the truth. Those two revolutions in South America have already upset things pretty badly, and it looks like we’ll have another one before the year is out. Those countries are all going to the left, and their Cardinals with them, if they aren’t stuck at the far right. You want the unofficial verdict from State, you push for Gemme and keep everyone pretty happy.”

  “It might not be so easy,” said Cardinal Durand, doing his best not to sound offended, though he was. “We have to answer to more than you, or the South Americans, or Neo-Communists.”

  “Well, the Third-world countries aren’t going to make that much of a difference, are they?” Mather asked with a faint smile. “Are they?”

  “Actually, I was referring to God,” said Cardinal Durand stiffly. He frowned at Mather. “I don’t expect you to know what I’m talking about, but Cardinals are more than political hacks, or they’re supposed to be. I was hoping that you or someone at the Department of State might be willing to see our predicament for what it is. Of course politics plays a part, and there are Catholics all over the world who seek our guidance in things political as well as spiritual. For that is the core of our conflict: before we answer to anyone else, we must answer to God.” He looked toward the elegant bronze crucifix on the far wall. “And in regard to the election of the next Pope, God might not give us much say in the matter.”

  Tyler Mather was about to laugh but saw Cardinal Durand’s face, and fell silent. He lowered his eyes. “No disrespect, Your Eminence.”

  Chapter 6

  It was fifteen minutes before the appointed hour when Clancy McEllton arrived at the little grove just off the main equestrian trail in the park. He looked innocuous enough—looking innocuous was his stock-in-trade—as he strolled past the designated bench four times, apparently enjoying the flowers. When he was satisfied that he was not being set up, he strolled a quarter of a mile down the lane, then came back toward the appointed place at a comfortable amble, his unmemorable features set in a curious half-smile; he rather enjoyed being back in the field again after three inactive years; and the money had piqued his interest, he could not deny it.

  A man sat on the bench now, a tall, thin fellow between forty and fifty with a nervous tick in his cheek. He cleared his throat as McEllton sat down. “It’s…uh…to o nice for rain tonight.” He said the code as if he were a sixth grader forced to recite in class. His accent was faintly southern U.S., but McEllton did not know the States well enough to pin-point the origin.

  “Well, perhaps tomorrow. The weather’s uncertain.” McEllton hated working with amateurs, as this chap clearly was, but his curiosity kept him where he was.

  “Not as bad as the economy,” said the thin man.

  “That’s a different change in the weather,” McEllton responded, finishing the sequence. “Mister Greene?”

  “Mister McEllton?” He grew more apprehensive instead of less. “Good of you to come.”

  “Your organization—whatever it may be—caught my attention with the twenty thousand dollars you sent. What is it you want of me, and why me? I’m largely out of the business these days. Except in an advisory capacity.” He knew too many people now, was too easily recognized in spite of his unremarkable features, and it was no longer safe for him to venture into the twilight realm of covert operations, no matter whose side he worked for.

  “So we understand. International Security Services pays you well, we understand.” Greene cleared his throat and stared at the thick hedges that separated the park from the heavy London traffic. “I have been sent to get your advice, and your assistance.”

  “How?” McEllton asked bluntly. “What can someone like me do for International Vision, Ltd.? And I suppose you want my advice apart from International Security Service?” He used the name that had been on the letterhead accompanying the twenty thousand dollars. “And who, exactly, is International Vision, Ltd.?”

  “There’s no reason you should know about it,” said Greene stiffly. “Our agreement is to pay you for services rendered. You, personally, not International Security Service. Who we are should not concern you.” He raised his square chin and added, “You haven’t bothered much about such matters in the past, from what we’ve learned.”

  “There’s that,” said McEllton philosophically. “Still, I thought I knew all the dodges. Your alias is a new one to me, so I guess I don’t.” He decided he had been out of the field a little too long. “What do you want of me?”

  Once again Greene took a little time to gather his thoughts. “We can’t find anyone else with your qualifications, and that makes our position difficult. Our research indicates that you are the nephew of Father McEllton, a Jesuit serving in Rome.”

  Of the many things McEllt
on was expecting, this was not part of them. He looked at Greene, actually startled. “Uncle Neddy?” he asked. “You want to know about Uncle Neddy?”

  “Father Edward McEllton, yes,” said Greene. “Assuming he is your uncle? as our records indicate.”

  McEllton nodded. “My father’s younger brother,” he said. “But if you know he’s my uncle, you know where he is in the family, don’t you.”

  “Yes, we do,” said Greene.

  “Well, then you also know there isn’t much family feeling among us all. Uncle Neddy isn’t one to peddle influence, if that’s what you’re looking for. His first and only loyalty is to the Church, Mister Greene.” He had to suppress the anger that flickered through him.

  “Father McEllton has quite a secure position at the Vatican. He is very close to the Curia and the College of Cardinals, or so our research indicates. If he does not know the reason for this delay in the selection of the Pope, he will be able to learn the reason from one of the Cardinals. He is apt to be in their confidence, or be able to obtain correct information with little effort and no suspicion falling on him.” Greene coughed once as if his throat were suddenly dry. “Would you agree?”

  In spite of his ambivalence toward his uncle, McEllton regarded Greene with increased suspicion. “Possibly.”

  “International Vision, Ltd. has been trying to find out what has delayed the election of a new Pope. We are extremely interested in the election of the Pope and the policy of the Vatican; that is all you need to know. The reasons may be crucial to…certain of our dealings. With Urban and Celestine both dead, no one can anticipate what the Church will do next. The recessed conclave is most disturbing. The Church is being very secretive about this recess; we would like to know why.” Greene favored McEllton with an unfocused smile. “If we knew the reason for the recess, and could get some notion about how long it might last, we could assess other developments.”

  “What other developments?” McEllton asked, not caring that his tone was offensive; he wanted his employment clarified. “You’re telling me that you haven’t been able to bribe anyone at the Vatican to give you that information, so now you want to hire a spy. Have I got it right?”