1635: The Papal Stakes

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The tall, lanky man entered the small stables quickly, refastening the baldric of his hanger as he turned towards the stalls lining the right wing of the building.

And came to an abrupt stop. There was a medium-sized man-well, an older gentleman, from what little he could see beyond the large traveling cloak-standing directly in his way. Moving to pass him, the tall lanky man made a hasty apology. “Pardon; I must pass-”

And then he stopped again and took a closer look.

“Yes,” said the older man. “It’s me. You are not the only one who can effect a disguise.”

The tall man leaped forward, sword singing a single metallic tone as it came swiftly out of its scabbard in a fast, fierce, back-handed down slash Which the older man nimbly hopped back from, sweeping off the traveling cloak with his left hand, while he drew a rapier. His age-wrinkled eyes narrowed, measuring. “Matadors should never accept bony bulls, but it seems I have no choice.” He smiled. “ Toro! ” he whispered.

The tall man feinted a stab, then went for a short forehand cut that the rapier intercepted, not so much blocking it as redirecting it. Which elicited a grin from the tall man; this old fool of a Catalan was not so skilled as Rombaldo had told him. The parry, while effective, had left the younger man’s weapon with plenty of momentum — which he redirected toward his target yet again: he rolled his wrist, the hanger’s path of deflection sweeping into an s-shape that brought it right around into a forceful back cut.

But the old Catalan seemed to have anticipated this. Rather than giving or standing his ground, he came closer-an even more foolish tactic, given that the rapier’s advantage was in distance, not proximity. But instead of working with his steel, the Catalan brought up the traveling cloak, its folds wrapping around his attacker’s hanger early in its swing. Almost like a matador, the older man gave way before the cut and twisted the cloak as soon as the hanger’s edge bit it.

For a long moment, the tall man was utterly disoriented, trying to cut through the cloak and keep a solid grip on his sword at the same time. All the while, the old Spaniard was sweeping around with him like a counterweight, the cloak joining them, a common center of rotation. But then the Spaniard, rather than stepping ever wider in their accelerating, lethal gavotte, planted his front foot, rotated at the hip, and held fast.

The tall man, suddenly swirling faster than his opponent, tried to compensate, tugging, stumbling a bit. He felt his wrist twisting, and took a quick extra step to help stop and ground himself without falling over. And in that moment, with his sword arm committed to balancing himself rather than holding his weapon ready, the Spaniard struck.

He must have been waiting for that near-stumble; the smaller man’s rapier-which he had drawn back when he planted his front foot-jetted forward, but not directly at the tall man’s midriff. Instead, it shot out on an intercept trajectory: though the thrust seemed slightly ahead of its target when it began, the taller man’s forward stumble brought him into alignment with it, the blade transfixing him just two inches under the sternum.

The tall man’s half-stagger became a full stagger, and in the second it took him to reorient himself, he felt the blade go in again, just beneath and outside the lower right extreme of his groin. He felt a hot spurting there, felt an onset of vertigo, and then noticed-almost calmly-the tip of the rapier disappearing under his own chin. He smelled hay-quite strongly-and thought he might be falling…

A second after Rombaldo’s agent fell to the floor of the stable, two of the Hibernians came in. “Don Ruy,” one of them muttered, worried, “I thought you said you would call us when-”

Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz shrugged. “There was no time, and there was no need. But I note and appreciate your concern.” He could not resist smoothing the left wing of his mustache, which had become slightly displaced by the brief swordplay. “You have seen to the other one?”

“Yes, sir. He was writing a message, as you suspected. And there is a boy already waiting in the tavern to receive it, apparently.”

“Then we do not have very long. When the messenger boy eventually inquires if his services are actually required, the innkeep will no doubt check the message-writer’s room and find his body. Did you remove the message itself?”

“Yes.”

“Excellent. Now, let us hide this one under the straw and leave. It will take some time to catch up with the rest of our group, and my wife will no doubt be getting worried about me.”

Sharon looked down for the third time. The toe of Ruy’s left boot was spotless, still somewhat moist from a recent cleaning, but just past the ankle, slightly behind where Ruy would be able to see it, was a telltale smear of blood. The smallest bit, not even enough to shed a drop upon the floor. But as an EMT, Sharon Nichols had seen plenty of blood, enough so that she didn’t miss it when her eyes roved across it, no matter the backdrop.

Sharon remained silent. Not only was she reluctant to interrupt Ruy’s report to the clerics gathered round the modest fire; she wasn’t sure she wanted to start down a path of questions that could not help but bring the other, ominous side of her husband into high relief. He had been a Spanish soldier on at least three, perhaps four, continents over the course of more than thirty years. That was a job which, within a year or two, either hardened a man to unthinkable cruelties, or drove him away. And her charming, sexy, amusing, effervescent Ruyfeelthy Sanchez as she had dubbed him during his first amorous advances-was not one of the ones who had fled the ranks, but had gone on to successes and triumphs in them.

How many innocents had he been ordered to kill? Because after all, that was often the duty of soldiers in this time, particularly Spanish soldiers. How many more had he slain during his varied service as a confidential agent for several of Spain’s cardinals and diplomats? The gentle, passionate, loving hands of Ruy were always immaculately clean when they touched her, yet, at moments like this, they also seemed indelibly stained with the blood of multitudes. Many of those notional corpses, which she now imagined littering the road behind him, had no doubt deserved to die. But not all. Possibly not even most. Sharon closed her eyes and did not open them again until they were raised beyond where she could see the faintly stained boot that bore witness to the prior life and deeds of Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz.

Who was explaining, “So the ambassadora and I decided not to alert anyone else to the fact that the two men who arrived with Father Wadding and his escorts were, in fact, enemy agents in disguise. We needed enough time to surreptitiously organize a tracking party, while also ensuring that sufficient security forces remained behind with the main group.”

Antonio Barberini still seemed amazed at the entire course of events. “But when did you suspect these two of being disguised agents?”

Wadding coughed lightly. Vitelleschi might have smiled, or it might have been a momentary facial tic.

Ruy shrugged. “Father Wadding told me of his suspicions as soon as he arrived.”

Barberini swiveled to stare at the Irish priest. “You? You knew they were assassins, Father Wadding?”

“You needn’t sound so stunned, Nephew,” chided Urban through a smile. “A priest who comes from, and has constant involvement in the affairs of, occupied Ireland is no stranger to duplicity and subterfuges.”

Wadding shrugged. “Our one horse threw a shoe after our second day journeying north from the Po. Threw it while we were overnighting in a stable, no less. The subsequent appearance of two mule-drivers who’d just lost a contract seemed an even more providential event than our Lord is wont to orchestrate.”

“They did not betray themselves in their actions?”

“Not directly, but there were intimations that they were not what they seemed.”

“Such as?” Mazzare’s interest was keen, clinical.

“Such as their enthusiasm for their work as mule-drivers, and for conversation with us. I mean no slight to mule-drivers as a class, but I have not found them to be exemplars of industry and motivation. They have much the same pace and personality as the creatures they tend, I find.

“That was not the case with these two. The were lively, alert, and not so much familiar with the animals as they were determined to make a good job of it. And whereas most teamsters and ostlers are of a taciturn nature, these two were quite talkative and inquisitive-except with each other. I found them an odd example of their trade.”

“And on this alone you ordered their deaths?” Barberini’s stare at Ruy was now tinged by horror.

“No, Your Eminence. There was more. When we offered them a commission to continue on with us-pure theater, of course-they declined, saying they had to return in great haste to the Po. Another impending job, according to them. Yet they had never inquired of Father Wadding or his party how long the job of escorting them was going to take; they were simply happy to take their daily wage as it came. But now, suddenly, they had urgent business back by the Po? No, we knew what they were. But just to be sure, on an occasion when one was sharing wine with me and the other was relieving himself in the bushes, I had Taggart check their bags.” Ruy spread his hands atop his knees. “Mule-drivers are much skilled in stick, staff, and cudgel; they wield them every day as the media whereby they impart their tender encouragements to the lagging creatures in their team. What Taggart found instead were: one well-hidden hanger, two couteaux-breche, two eight-inch daggers, and a garrote. These are not the weapons of mule-drivers, Your Eminence, of this you may be certain.”

“So you suspect they saw Father Wadding arrive on the northern bank of the Po, trailed him, lamed his one horse, and then serendipitously arrived as the solution to his sudden lack of sufficient transportation?”

“Exactly. And when they pleaded the necessity of returning to the same town on the Po, we simply followed. Albeit at some distance; assassins are, themselves, inherently untrusting souls.”

The silence that usurped the final piece of Ruy’s narrative-how that surreptitious pursuit had ended-was long, and not entirely comfortable.

“So,” exhaled Cardinal Barberini, “it seems the danger has been averted. Narrowly, perhaps, but averted.”

“Yes, Your Eminence,” agreed Ruy in a voice that was full of unspoken caveats. “For now.”

Barberini looked like he might have an episode of incontinence, despite his comparatively tender age. “What do you mean, ‘for now’?”

Ruy shrugged. “By eliminating these blackguards shortly after they began their return journey to report to their master, Borja’s spymaster here in the Republic will have considerable difficulty picking up our trail. Had the two been able to send word that they had encountered us, and where, then he would have been able to resume his search from where we sit now, which is far too close to our ultimate destination.”

Barberini spread his hands as if beseeching Providence itself for fair treatment. “But since that information was not relayed, Borja’s spymaster will not know where to search at all; his assassins will have to return to watching for signs or connections at the Venetian embassy.”

Vitelleschi shook his head. He looked at Ruy, who nodded that he was happy to let the vinegary Jesuit point out the flaw in Antonio’s reasoning. “Cardinal Barberini, this would only be true if the man ‘running’ these agents was so foolish as to keep no track of which of his teams were deployed to which towns upon the banks of the Po. When this team is the only one that fails to return, the enemy spymaster will logically deduce two things: that this was the team that encountered Father Wadding and his escort. And that we discovered their true purpose and eliminated them. Meaning he knows at least where along the Po to resume his search.”

“Oh,” said Antonio.

“And when he begins expanding his search from there, his men will eventually come across a small town, several days farther north, in which they will no doubt hear tales of a recent double-murder: a pair of strangers-mule-drivers-who were killed for no reason, and for which there are no suspects. That is the trail-blaze which we unavoidably left behind us, marking our path.”

Barberini turned to Ruy again. “That is why you tracked them for several days before dispatching them: to put that trail blaze closer to the Po. The next agents will now have a larger area to search, and will have to start farther away from us.”

“Yes.”

Barberini nodded. “Now I understand. I had wondered-” Barberini stopped, abashed.

Sharon’s voice was like slate, even in her own ears. “Wondered why we didn’t slit their throats here, Your Eminence? Well, now you know.” But you’ll never know about the hushed argument over doing it at all-really the first dispute Ruy and I have ever had. He was right, damn it; we couldn’t give the assassins any more of our trail than we could help revealing. But I’m no good at staring at the ceiling, alone in my bed, wondering if he’ll live to come back to it. A man his age, playing hide-and-go-seek-and-destroy with assassins on the back roads of rural Italy. I knew I was not cut out to be a cop’s wife; how the hell did I think I’d be able to handle being married to-?

“My heart?”

The voice was Ruy’s: gentle, rich, shaping the words like a gift meant especially for her ears. And the doubt fled, and she knew why she would have married him all over again this very moment. “Yes, Ruy?”

“You seem distracted?”

“I was just thinking about how-how lucky we are. And how safe. Thanks to you.”

Ruy’s eyes widened a little bit; Sharon had not been reticent or oblique about her aversion to his plan. He smiled slowly, warmly at her.

“Lucky, yes,” agreed Barberini moodily, “but not lucky enough. Or safe enough. As you point out, Father Vitelleschi, these murderous rogues will most assuredly draw closer to us once again.”

“Which we anticipate,” said Ruy, rising to his feet so quickly and decisively that, in a man of less poise, it would have seemed that he had leaped to his feet. “And because we can anticipate where along the banks of the Po they will pick up their search, we have trailed some false lures on the roads and along the river.”

Six days later, Father Wadding was riding a little bit ahead of Larry Mazzare; as usual, sticking as close as he could to the pope and his nephew. Oddly, Vitelleschi had been spending more of his time drifting back to ride alongside Mazzare. He didn’t say anything; he just rode in a silence that, over the days, had become companionable.

As always, Father Wadding was riding a little bit ahead, sticking as close as he could to the pope and his nephew. Oddly, Vitelleschi had been spending more of his time drifting back to ride alongside Mazzare. He didn’t say anything; he just rode in a silence that, over the days, had become companionable.

But as they entered a small defile nestled in between the green peaks of the Vincentine PreAlps, with the sun rapidly heading towards its hiding place behind Monte Campomolon, Urban seemed to explain something to Wadding that surprised the Irishman. After a few moments, he slowed his nag so that it ultimately dropped back to put him alongside Vitelleschi. After several long, silent minutes, he cleared his throat. “Father Vitelleschi, if I understand the pope correctly, I have you to thank for ensuring that the Franciscans have maintained their control over St. Isidore’s, in Rome.”

Vitelleschi looked at him sharply. “Father Wadding, I regret to say that your gratitude seems to be misplaced. The decision regarding the legitimacy of Cardinal Ludovisi’s will was not in my purview.”

Mazzare dropped one eyebrow, raised the other. “Would someone care to fill me in on what’s being discussed?”

Wadding nodded. “Certainly, Your Eminence. St. Isidore’s benefactor, Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, went to be with our eternal Father in 1632. He had long been a friend of the Franciscans, and had been created a Cardinal as Defender of Ireland. Given the signal successes of our Irish College, we rather presumed that he would leave a sustaining legacy for St. Isidore. He evidently did, but the will attributed to him transfers the control of the church and colleges to the Jesuits.”

“Am I to take it that this dispute has been in process for three years, now?” asked Mazzare.

“Just so,” affirmed Vitelleschi. “But the Franciscans, represented in the person of Father Wadding, vigorously contested the legitimacy of this part of the will-”

“Which we did in concert with Cardinal Ludovisi’s younger brother, I will point out,” Wadding was quick to add.

“It is as Father Wadding says,” Vitelleschi nodded as approving of the narrow, winding valley road ahead of them. “At any rate, it was the Sacred Roman Rota that had taken the matter under consideration, not me.”

“Yes, Father Vitelleschi, but you were the one who, just a few months after Galileo’s trial, encouraged the Jesuit fathers charged with defending the legitimacy of the will to reassess their case. To reassess it ‘in great detail.’ I believe those were your very words, were they not?”

Vitelleschi’s brow descended slightly. “Were we back in Rome, I would set aside some time to discover which of my colleagues have taken injudicious liberties in sharing the content of our private discussions.”

“So it’s true then: you delayed the process?” When Vitelleschi’s only response was an almost imperceptible shrug, Mazzare pressed further. “Why did you delay the proceedings?”

“Because of you.”

Mazzare blinked. “Me? How could that be? I have never even heard anything about-”

“Your Eminence, I do not mean ‘you’ in the sense of your very person, but in what you represent. Change. Up-time change. In the weeks following Galileo’s acquittal, His Holiness began contemplating how the arrival of up-time documents-most particularly those canonical texts you sent us before the trial, Cardinal Mazzare-would change the path of the Church. How your people’s perspectives on religious freedom would change what you called the Thirty Years’ War. He rightly anticipated that the Austrian branch of the Hapsburgs would begin to drift away from the Spanish, and that the shifting of those veritable mountains of Roman Catholic strength would send earthquakes throughout the Christian world.” Vitelleschi suffered what might have been another tic or a suppressed spasm of sardonic amusement. “He did not foresee, however, that the epicenter of the first shocks would originate in Rome itself. But in your case, Father Wadding, he wanted to change history for the better: in the up-time world, you were pushed out of St. Isidore’s earlier this year. He thought that was not only unfair, but unwise.”

“Unwise?” echoed Wadding.

“Unwise,” confirmed a new voice. Urban had let his own mount slow enough to be proximal to their own. “Father Wadding, you, along with the late Father MacCaghwell, are among the best Franciscan minds of our times. But more important, you are also a person of high integrity. I will need that integrity very much as we arrive at our refuge, for now I may think and deliberate with you.”

“I am honored, Your Holiness, but why do you specifically want a Franciscan as an interlocutor?”

“Oh, I do not want only a Franciscan, Father Wadding. I need a Jesuit, too.”

Vitelleschi looked at a distant bird; Mazzare could not tell if he was squinting or scowling.

“And I need a priest who has lived in a world where Mother Church has benefited from an additional three-and-a-half centuries of our Savior’s guiding wisdom and the Holy Spirit’s guiding grace.” Urban looked at Larry and smiled. “One might indeed claim that you possess a truly unique Charism, Cardinal Mazzare.”

Mazzare was silent for a long time. Yes, this is what he had felt coming. He had felt it back in Magdeburg as news of Borja’s violation of Rome began coming in over the radio, as the communications from the Holy See made it clear that it was not merely a political takeover, it was the imposition of a theological junta. Nothing less than an attempt to change both the pope and the direction of the Church by means of a coup d’etat.

And what had been the issue that had started this sequence of dominoes tumbling, that had allowed an army to be put at Borja’s disposal-and with so little control that, even if he had exceeded his mandate from Madrid, there was now no way to stop him?

The threat was as profound as it was uncomplicated: true, sweeping, politically-protected and — enforced religious tolerance. At this moment in history, this was the dagger at the neck of the Church. And for its reciprocal part, that Church was not merely confident in its identity as the one true faith, but convinced of its duty to impose God-ordained correctness upon the rest of the world by force of arms and auto-da-fe, if need be. Indeed, all too many of its princes were not merely ready, but eager, to resort to those brutal methods.

And standing squarely against such a doctrine and such actions was not only the general religious toleration that prevailed among the up-timers, but the specific, and deeply contradictory, canonical pronouncements found among the Church records that had come back in time with Larry Mazzare’s library, ex cathedra directives that had emerged from Mazzare turned back toward the pope. “This is about Vatican Two, isn’t it?”

Urban’s smile was slow, appreciative. “Ah, Lawrence, I knew you would see it. Which is only right”-Urban’s eyes almost twinkled-“since you were so troublesome as to bring up the whole matter in the first place.”

“Vatican Two?” Wadding shaped the words almost as though he were employing a memory trick. “That was the up-time convocation to begin the reintegration of all their Christian sects, supposedly presided over by Mother Church, was it not?”

“It was,” the pope answered.

“And in which general religious tolerance was made canonical doctrine,” added Vitelleschi.

“I was not aware the pontiff ever reiterated the exhortations of that council ex cathedra,” Wadding murmured.

“Ah, see? And this is why I needed you, Father Wadding. Why I needed all of you.” Urban sat very straight in his saddle. “For a variety of now-urgent reasons, we must decide upon the canonical status here-in this world-of the decrees and doctrines that proceeded from the Holy See in Cardinal Mazzare’s world.”

Wadding sputtered. “Your Holiness? At the very least, is not a different world a different world?”

Mazzare smiled at Wadding. “Are you suggesting that there is more than one God, with one Will?”

“Your Eminences!” Urban actually laughed. He made a palm’s-down gesture as if he was calming obstreperous children. “You shall have time enough to compare these opinions. Indeed, over the next few weeks, I will ask you to be their champions.”

Mazzare felt slightly disoriented. “Your Holiness?”

“Yes, of course. You, Cardinal Mazzare, can hardly be tasked to speak for any position other than the positive, in this matter. The Mother Church of your world, whose extremely tolerant practices you have made manifest here, has not only its best advocate in you, but I doubt you could bring yourself to earnestly argue that its canonical pronouncements should have no standing in this world.”

Mazzare simply said, “I fear you are correct, Your Holiness.”

Urban nodded. “And Father Wadding will be the advocatus diaboli.”

The Irishman looked stunned. “Your Holiness? Me?”

“Certainly. Who better?”

“Many would do far better than I. For instance, Father Vitelleschi’s familiarity with the theological conundrums of integrating the perspectives of the up-time Church far outstrip my humble-”

“Father Wadding, your humility, while genuine, is also quite misguided. You were the veritable spearhead-theological, rhetorical, and spiritual-in the final canonical determination of Mother Church’s doctrine regarding our Savior’s Virgin Birth. And I know you have maintained a lively interest in the theological documents and implications of the arrival of the up-timers.”

Wadding looked a bit pained. “Your Holiness, what you say is true. But I fear that what I have learned has not left me comfortable with their presence in our world, or congenial to what they call their Roman Catholic faith, so changed is it from our own.”

“Which is precisely why you are to argue against one of its great changes: the radical inter-faith tolerance that did not merely arise from Vatican Two, but was its very raison’ d’etre.”

Wadding looked even more uncomfortable. “Might I point out, Your Holiness, that just thirty-five years ago, Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for espousing the kind of radical toleration that the up-timers practice, and for claiming-as they also do-that many of His most wondrous miracles are in fact, merely laws of nature?”

“You most certainly may point that out, Father Wadding. Indeed, I expect you to do so. That will be part of your job, in the coming weeks. But it will also be important to remain mindful that the scientific assertions that brought such trouble to Galileo have now, in fact, been proven correct. And not just by the documents of the up-timers, but by our own observers, who now know what to look for, and how.” Urban folded his hands upon the front of his saddle, the reins held tightly beneath them. “Father, we have entered into a time when we must reconsider many matters in which we thought our knowledge was absolute. And this will, I suspect, take us down wholly unprecedented pathways of investigation and debate. Over which Father Vitelleschi will prevail as judge and arbiter.”

“Not you, Your Holiness?” Wadding sounded baffled.

“No, not me.”

“What role, then, do you intend to play in the proceedings?”

“I intend,” said Urban with a sly smile, “to watch, listen, and be edified.” Seeing the look of surprise, even dismay, upon the faces of the other clerics, Urban lifted a hand, striking a pose that painters often used in portraying Socratic scholars at work among their students. “Our Heavenly Father has, since the arrival of the up-timers, set us upon a fateful road that now forks in two opposite directions. And the respective choices are as terribly distinct, and as terribly portentous, as those that faced our Lord and Savior on the night he was betrayed and contended with his human frailties in the garden at Gethsemane.”

Wadding lifted his chin by the smallest of margins. “But there is this difference, Your Holiness: Christ could not err. His was a crisis of the heart, not of holiness, not of grace.”

“That is profoundly true-and so I am glad that you are with me to offer counsel. For you must now each argue for one of the two forking paths that lie before us.”

“You mean, toward Vatican Two, or away,” murmured Wadding, so distracted that he forgot to add the Pontiff’s honorific.

“Yes. And let us take another lesson from our Savior’s terrible night of trial, for Christ’s behavior always stands as a model for our own. He asked for the bitter cup to pass, if it might. This shows us, beyond any argument, that despite the horrors approaching, Our Savior’s head was clear. He knew what lay before Him, if He chose to stay in that garden. He knew the prudent, mundane choice, but demonstrated His grace in rejecting it in favor of the wise-the divine-choice.

“So, let us see the same distinction in our own quandary as we approach this fork in our own road. And let us do so by setting aside, just for one moment, our constant mandate that we must always, to the best of our frail abilities, be agents of divine grace. Let us instead, simply reason as practical men as we confront this question: Is there any doubt about the wisest alliance for us to make?”

All of them shook their heads in the negative. Even Wadding.

“Just so. We are certain of the political prudence of allying with the USE and the forces of change exemplified in that land, as well as in the Netherlands and, increasingly, even Austria. We are no less sure of this than Christ knew that the most prudent act was to flee the garden of Gethsemane.

“But, also like him, we have a crisis of the heart as well. However, whereas our Savior’s grace is perfect, ours is terribly imperfect. So, flawed as we are in matters of grace, we can only discern the most prudent mundane option with certainty. But what if terrestrial prudence is not, in this case, aligned with what is right and holy? What if, to walk in grace, we must walk in perilous ways, as did Christ that night, and the martyrs thereafter? Is it right-is it God’s will-that we should place the safe-keeping of Peter’s Church in the hands of those who many of us still call heretics, but who sincerely deem themselves Reformed?”

“We must not.” Wadding’s voice shook with emotion.

“I am not so certain of either path at this particular fork in the road, Father Wadding. But I am sure of this: if, at the end of our deliberations, we retain any doubt that the prudent choice is also the right choice, the holy choice, then we must construe that doubt to be our Heavenly father whispering the word ‘caution’ into our ears.”

Mazzare nodded, worried but hearing many layers in Urban’s musings. “His Holiness has the wisdom of the early Church fathers. But I must ask this question, too: where does the Prince of the Church go if not to a haven made safe by powers which now espouse toleration? Which, indeed, only possess those powers of protection because of the unity made possible by that toleration?”

‘‘An excellent question, my son. But again, that is merely a matter of prudence. And as the unworthy inheritor of Peter’s See, I am bound to put questions of grace before prudence, when and if they are separate concerns. As they most certainly are in this case.”

They turned a corner in the winding lane, the wooded mountains grown so steep and so close that it was hard to imagine why the pines did not tumble down upon them. And at that road’s end, there was a small country villa, boasting a modest enclosed garden and humble, scattered vineyards.

“See,” said Urban, turning and pointing at the rustic building with a smile, “Gethsemane awaits us.”