1635: The Papal Stakes

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Vitelleschi rose, standing before the hearth. “The issue before us tonight is that of Grantville’s origins: are they satanic or natural? It is crucial that we have high confidence in our answer to this question. The documents of Grantville, and what they claim about both the physical and theological realities of our own world, must have their provenance established. Collectively, they are either the most cunning of all lies, or the most revolutionary of all truths. If true, they may contain inspirations from a loving god, who is reaching a hand from the up-time world into this one.”

“And if they are satanic lies,” added Wadding, “then they are invitations to oblivion.”

“Yes,” Vitelleschi agreed with a nod, “it is one or the other, it seems. For if the up-time corpus is one immense conceit, then to give it credence is to eat the fruit of saplings grown from the seeds of Eden’s forbidden tree. Cardinal Wadding, you will begin our proceedings.”

Wadding nodded, stood-and surprised Sharon by looking at her directly. “I begin with an apology to our host, Ambassador Nichols. Ambassador, my task puts me in a bitter position. I must now repay your protection and hospitality by calling into question the godliness of your very origins and existence. This is not the way Irish guests are taught to honor their hosts.” His smile was genuinely regretful, but brief; he turned to face the other clerics. “And in fact, my apology to the ambassadora leads to my first task: to correct the wild arguments of those who claim that Grantville’s citizens are merely a cohort of duplicitous demons which might at any moment cast off their fleshy disguises and reveal their true, infernal natures. This laughably simplistic perception indicates a dangerously insufficient conception of infernal genius. Consider: is it likely that so juvenile a deception would be the best that the Prince of Lies could craft? Has Satan not been the author of mischief so subtle that even God’s own angelic servants were corrupted by his poisonous fabulations?”

“I presume you perceive a more suitably insidious plot, Cardinal Wadding?” Vitelleschi inquired.

“Yes. If the Prince of Lies has the power and freedom to construct a town and its inhabitants out of the formless elements, he would populate it with creatures that genuinely believed the memories he breathed into them along with the spark of apparent life. For it is truly said that the most convincing purveyors of lies are those who do not know that they are, indeed, lies.

“Pertinently, I call your attention to Cardinal Mazzare’s own radical embrace of toleration for all religions, and his denunciation of war, particularly those waged to combat heresy. I do not doubt Cardinal Mazzare’s sincerity when he attests that these were also the teachings of his future Church. But, if he is an unwitting satanic construct, he would naturally believe in these tenets no less intensely than he would believe that his life in the twentieth century was actual, rather than a fabulation implanted in his mind.

“Surely the danger latent in following the doctrinal laxities of Cardinal Mazzare’s supposed future are clear to all. The presumption that warfare is an intolerable and that life is sacred above all other things not only places excessive value on our terrestrial existence, but might also be the telltale clue that these tenets are a Trojan horse, not a holy gift. Certainly, the promise of peace would be eagerly embraced by the war-plagued multitudes of this century-but for precisely that reason, we must study this apparent gift most carefully before we take it within the walls of our faith.”

Wadding raised a cautionary index finger. “Is there not the brimstone scent of perfidious elegance about this ‘gift’? Imagine what it could engender: toleration so great that it becomes indiscriminate; sympathy so profound that it overrides moral judgment. In the name of peace, we might succumb to requests to relax our vigilance, might fail to teach subsequent generations to strictly observe the sacraments and proclaim their faith in the One True Church. If, then, our faith decays into pallid passivity, we would be responsible for the damnation of untold millions, now and in future generations. For upon those multitudes-all unbaptized, unblessed by the grace of the holy sacraments they have forgotten-Satan would smile benignly from behind a hundred facades of serene peace, reveling in how our lack of moral courage today provided him with the opportunity to devour the souls of all the children of men, for all time.

“And how would this chain of events begin? Why, by following the lesson that Cardinal Mazzare seems to have brought from his future: to work uncritically toward the intertwined values of peace and religious tolerance. And what first, fateful step are we now contemplating which would logically take us in that direction? Nothing less than having the Head of the Church Militant, the only living link with Heaven, place himself in the hands of the greatest scourge upon the True Church, Gustav Adolf of Sweden.”

Vitelleschi raised a hand. “Cardinal Wadding, in your zeal, you seem to be losing sight of our process here: one issue at a time. The matter of taking refuge with the Swede shall be considered at a later date. Cardinal Mazzare, you have been singularly silent; is there nothing you wish to say in response to Cardinal Wadding?”

Larry rose. “Has Cardinal Wadding finished making his case?”

Wadding stared at Larry. Sharon saw a hint of trepidation flicker through his otherwise steady gaze. “I am mostly done.”

Larry started to sit. “I will wait until you are fully done.”

Vitelleschi held up his hand again. “Cardinal Mazzare, I find your reluctance to respond to Cardinal Wadding’s points more worrisome than his overzealous exposition of them.”

Mazzare spread his hands. “Father-General Vitelleschi, I have not interrupted Cardinal Wadding’s arguments out of a sense of both propriety and order. If I were to immediately rebut every assertion with which I disagree, we would still be debating his first point, I fear.”

Vitelleschi’s thin, wrinkled lips puckered. Urban lifted his hand, apparently to scratch his nose, but the light in his eyes told what he was really doing: hiding the smile he had been unable to suppress.

“So,” continued Larry, “I will wait until Cardinal Wadding has finished explicating the primary points of his case. And I will humbly hope that he will show the same patience and forbearance when I present mine.”

Wadding’s face momentarily became sour.

Ruy turned to Sharon, using that change of position to conceal his own smile. “Your up-time parish priest is quite clever; he has outflanked one of the preeminent debaters of this day.”

“What do you mean?” asked Sharon.

“I mean he has used Wadding’s own argumentational mannerisms to influence the criteria upon which they will both be judged. Because if the Irish cardinal now interrupts Cardinal Mazzare, it is the Irishman who will be seen as the lesser debater.”

Sharon, who congratulated herself on having a good grasp of the principles of argument, grudgingly conceded that she just didn’t have the formal training in it to perceive the finer points that well-educated down-timers did. “Okay, I’ll bite; why would interrupting show Wadding to be the lesser debater?”

“Because, my love, Cardinal Mazzare has subtly thrown down the gauntlet of true rhetorical sophistication. He is implying that his argument, if presented in toto, will be stronger than Wadding’s. After all, he felt no need to interrupt Wadding. So now, if Wadding interrupts Mazzare, it implies that the Irishman’s argument is fundamentally weaker, since only he needs to disrupt his adversary’s presentation. And so, it is more likely that Mazzare can now make his case without disruption. Masterful.”

Sharon nodded, staring at Ruy. “Wow,” she said. “Maybe you should be the ambassador, not me.”

“What a novel idea-having a Spaniard as the representative of the USE.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I do. And I still disagree. I may be well-versed in my century’s traditions of debate, my heart, but I do not have your patience, nor your fine mix of practicality and compassion.”

Vitelleschi was staring at Wadding. “Cardinal Wadding, will you be able to extend to Cardinal Mazzare the same discursive courtesy he has extended to you?”

Wadding had the wary look of an old fox that knew himself to be in the vicinity of an unseen trap. “I cannot presently see any reason why I would need to interrupt my colleague.” Wadding’s caveat-“presently”-was not lost on any of his listeners, judging from the collection of raised eyebrows.

Mazzare nodded at his Irish colleague and turned to the rest of the clerics. “I must begin by pointing out that Father Vitelleschi’s charge to me-to prove Grantville’s origins beyond a ‘reasonable doubt’-places the burden of proof upon the accused, not the accuser. That I need only prove it beyond a ‘reasonable’ doubt, while helpful, is still problematic: there is no criterion for distinguishing what is reasonable from that which is unreasonable. And this is a most urgent definitional requirement since I must adduce positive, rather than negative, proofs.”

Vitelleschi frowned. “I am unfamiliar with your terms. What is the difference between a negative proof and a positive proof?”

“Father-General, in my world, there was a philosopher named Karl Popper who averred that the only true proof was negative proof. By this, he meant it is possible to conclusively disprove an assertion, but almost impossible to conclusively prove one.

“Allow me to furnish an example: I propose the hypothesis that all stones float. It is easy enough to conclusively prove that hypothesis wrong. We walk to the nearest body of water and cast in stones. As soon as the first stone sinks, the assertion is disproven. This is negative proof.

“I then follow with a seemingly logical extension of the first hypothesis: I propose that all rocks will sink. We perform the same test, and achieve the same result. But we have not conclusively proven this second hypothesis, even though it seems to demonstrate the exact same property of all rocks: that they sink.”

Vitelleschi nodded. “Of course; the first can be easily disproven by a single test, but the second can only be proven by an impossibly omniscient observer who would have to be present every time a rock is cast into water. Consequently, the hypothesis-however strong and unexceptioned-cannot be considered proven as a truly universal law of nature.”

“Just so, Father-General. And in the case of investigating the origins of Grantville, this distinction is not a sophistry, but a crucial caveat. Specifically, there is simply no way to conclusively demonstrate that Grantville’s origins are entirely mundane, because the task ultimately requires positive proof, not negative proof. Which means that some doubt will always remain. Therefore, insofar as I must eliminate all ‘reasonable doubt,’ you might say that I do not start from a clean slate, but begin with an unavoidable deficit.”

Vitelleschi nodded carefully. “Perhaps so. But what may be done?”

“Simply this: in an issue where all logic and likelihood points in a single direction, let us agree that this constitutes the removal of reasonable doubt. So, if the viability of one of my arguments-or Cardinal Wadding’s-depends upon rejecting most of what we hold true about our Church, or goes against the deductive cut of Occam’s razor, I would humbly ask that those arguments not be validated. Let us not stand the world on its side to explain how a fly may remain affixed to a vertical wall.”

Vitelleschi’s face was utterly rigid, which Sharon swiftly and surely interpreted: he was resolved not to show the degree to which Mazzare’s reasoning and erudition had pleased him. “Your point is well taken, Cardinal Mazzare. Please begin.”

Mazzare bowed slightly. “Logically, if a person asserts that Grantville was constructed by Satan, they must also believe that the Devil either has the power to create life-meaning, the power to create its up-time inhabitants-or he has the power to shape us from either demons or the souls of the damned. In the latter case, Satan must also have the power to replace each soul’s genuine memories with false ones. This violates all canonical theology, which holds that Satan does not possess such sweeping powers.

“But of course, if either of these circumstances proves to be true, it not only demolishes some foundations of canonical theology, but obligates you to kill all of Grantville’s original inhabitants. Logically, that same campaign of demon-extermination must be extended to include all the offspring of the hundreds of unions that have now taken place between them and down-timers. Your reflex toward mercy might prompt you to spare such unwitting half-demons, but scripture leaves no room for debate: ‘ye shall not suffer them to live among ye.’”

Sharon exchanged wide-eyed looks with Ruy. Larry was certainly gambling big with that point, because if he lost…

Mazzare was already moving on. “Let us turn to the material aspects of Grantville, and in particular, its library. You are all familiar with its detailed information on advanced mathematics, science, and engineering.

“However, for every tome of information and insight, there are a thousand utterly banal records buried in every filing cabinet in the town. Now, the Devil may be renowned for being as wise as the serpent, able to wait long years for the final corruption of his prey, but constructing this edifice of flawlessly consistent paperwork would require the patience and demeanor of a slow-witted stockroom clerk. So I ask, according to your own representations of Satan’s nature, how and when did he acquire the virtues of humility and patience necessary to construct a conceit so intricately seamless, and yet so numbingly dull? That is almost as great a mystery as the one cited more often: how could data from Grantville be of infernal origin, since it has already promoted both edification and peace in these dark times, and promises to be of greater assistance with each passing year? Would a Prince of Darkness include such beneficences in his construct?”

“Most assuredly, he would.” Wadding interjected.

Vitelleschi’s left eyebrow raised. “Why, Cardinal Wadding?”

“For the same reason he would give the fabricated persons of Grantville belief in their memories: to make the underlying conceit all the more convincing. The arch-fiend would indeed foresee that many of us presume that there can be no goodness or grace in his creations. Consequently, he would, on the contrary, embed small elements of just such goodness and grace in order to create the perfect illusion that the town was not a creation of his.”

“And how do you respond to this, Cardinal Mazzare?” asked Vitelleschi.

“I think that Cardinal Wadding must propose this alternative in order to preserve the narrow thread of deduction by which his original argument hangs. For Grantville to be a creation of the Devil, any virtues associated with it must be a stalking horse to conceal deeper layers of perfidy. Of course, one must then wonder why Satan created a town where the young women are clad so scandalously, to down-time eyes. I can hear the apologia already: this perplexing mixture of virtue and vice creates an optimally convincing reality by adding an authentic touch of confounding inconsistency.

“However, a cursory study of the library’s record of the social and historical trends of up-time America will provide you with simple, culturally consistent explanations. And while you are there, you should also look up the term ‘conspiracy theorists.’ Their presumptions of a world controlled by sub rosa star-chambers resonate with the satanic plots being proposed here today. Both ignore the common-sense limit of every conspiracy: the more ponderous its originating casuistries and implausibilities, the more likely it is to collapse under its own weight. May I resume my own presentation, Father-General?”

Vitelleschi nodded.

“Cardinal Wadding’s argument also necessarily presumes that God not only permits Satan an uncanonical measure of power, but that he is permitted equally unprecedented knowledge of both natural phenomena and the future. After all, in our library, down-timers have found precise forewarnings of floods and epidemics, have learned methods to test the fossil record of earlier days, have schooled themselves in novel chemical reactions and natural properties, have found lost cities, discovered unknown islands, reclaimed lost languages, located unsuspected resources. All these revelations must, according to Cardinal Wadding and others, be prophecies and sorcery pouring forth from the bowels of Hell itself.

“Allow me to unsheathe Occam’s razor. How do we reconcile these presumptions with the Church’s doctrine that, just as Satan is unable to create genuine life ex nihilo, that there are also limits upon both his knowledge and how much of it he may share? For if he is not so limited, then why has he not used a ‘ruse’ like Grantville before?

“The only one logical answer-that until now, such a ‘ruse’ was not a winning strategy-only leads to an even more thorny question: what has changed? Why is the ‘ruse’ of Grantville a winning strategy now? Indeed, how can it be, since discussions about Grantville almost always stimulate speculation upon Satan’s literal presence in this world. This benefits the Church; for a century, priests have worried that the increase in secularism will cause the laity to forget the reality of the Devil. That trend has dramatically reversed-thanks to the Devil himself, if we are to believe Cardinal Wadding.

“In conclusion, to accept Grantville as a diabolical creation, one must be willing to overturn all the Church’s canonical and traditional understandings of the powers and prerogatives of both God and the Devil.”

Ruy blew out an appreciative breath. “Cardinal Mazzare is quite a formidable philosopher. To say nothing of subtle. Are you sure he is not a Jesuit?”

Larry had evidently overhead Ruy’s more-than- sotto voce aside to his wife; Mazzare smiled as he said to Vitelleschi, “Father-General, I have one personal observation.” He turned in a circle, making eye-contact with his various listeners. “I see before me a pope who paid one up-timer the supreme compliment of officiating at his wedding. I see a seasoned Spanish veteran who has married an up-timer himself. I see a father-general who kindly encouraged an up-timer-me-to address the papal court convened on the matter of Galileo. I see a young cardinal who generously invited an up-time ambassador into his Roman palace, and who has since been happy to find that hospitality repaid in this desperate hour. And I see one last cardinal”-he turned and smiled at Wadding-“who began today’s proceedings with an apology for calling into question the humanity-the presumed humanity-of his host, that same ambassador.”

“And your point is?” muttered Vitelleschi gruffly, evidently discomfited by Larry’s reference to his well-concealed kindness.

Mazzare indicated the entirety of his audience. “My point is that none of the down-timers in this room-religious or otherwise-would have behaved as they did if they deeply, truly believed that the beings they were blessing, hosting, marrying, entreating, or thanking were demons or the damned in disguise. I know the moral fiber of the persons in this room as well as I know anything, and none of them would be so remiss in their duty to God, nor so hypocritical, that they would willingly consort with agents of Hell. In short, whatever you may say, suspect, or argue here, your actions have already rendered the verdict of your instincts: that we up-timers are frail, flawed humans no different from you except that we are now orphans in time.”

The room was quiet for a long moment, then Wadding coughed politely. “Presuming all this to be true, it still does not preclude the possibility that Grantville may have merely been brought to this time and place by the power of Satan.”

Mazzare shrugged. “This is true. But the distinction in that alternative is very great indeed, Cardinal Wadding. For if we were only transported here by Satan, then we are not his constructs at all; we truly are from the future, and the contents of Grantville are an authentic record of it.”

“It is also possible,” persisted Wadding, “that the instincts of every down-timer in this room have been misled, that Satan has created the perfect illusion.”

Mazzare smiled again. “If the cream of the Church’s intellect, as well as the common people, can be so completely duped, then the real miracle is that Satan has not used that skill to triumph long before now. To cite an axiom of my time, you can fool all of the people some of the time, and can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. If Satan had such powers of deception, there would never have been any hope for humanity.”

Vitelleschi waited. When no debate ignited, he lifted his palms, inviting “Any who have questions may ask them.”

Sharon was surprised when Ruy stood. “Learned Eminences, will you allow a poor, ignorant soldier to ask a question?”

Vitelleschi raised an eyebrow. “First, you are none of the things you say, Don Ruy. And second, I did say any who have questions. So ask.”

“Your Eminences, Father-General, you may certainly presume I have made my own determination that Grantville is not a creation of Satan.”

He looked back briefly at Sharon, who was shocked by the sudden gravity of his smile. So this is what Ruy looks like when he is very, very serious.

“And yet,” he continued, “I am not without my reservations. Cardinal Mazzare, you raised the issue of the knowledge that has come to us from Grantville. I have read many of your books. One author-a Swiss by the name of Nietzsche-has, in particular, troubled me.”

Larry’s eyes became very grave. “I’m not surprised.”

“In particular, I am worried by his famous assertion that ‘God is dead.’ I understand that he was not literally claiming that divinity had recently expired, but rather, that God had never existed, except in the human imagination: that the idea of God was how early man explained the inexplicable phenomena that surrounded him.”

Mazzare nodded. “That is as good a summary as I’ve ever heard, Ruy.”

“His Eminence flatters an old soldier’s stunted powers of insight. However, it also seems that this philosopher claimed that Man’s increasing knowledge and command of natural phenomena caused ‘God’s death.’ So I ask you: are we not seeing the beginning of that same process in this world? In short, how long before the majority of down-timers make a chorus with this Nietzsche, saying also that ‘God is dead’?”

Larry Mazzare smiled slowly, fondly, at Ruy. “Ruy Sanchez, you are indeed a wily old soldier. And I freely admit that what you fear could transpire. But it was coming, anyhow; had we not arrived and changed your history, your outcome would have matched our own.

“But I believe that our arrival may have, in fact, changed that. I think that this world may do better than ours did in handling this challenge to faith. The trial came upon us up-timers slowly, and faith decayed inside us over the centuries, like a citadel falling to a long, slow siege. But here, where this century’s eyes of undiminished faith are abruptly shown the natural wonders unveiled by Grantville’s science, I think it likely that those same eyes will see that God is more alive than ever. How much more astounding is the wonder of God’s design when we see the elegant beauty of His handiwork in the microscopic structures of a leaf, a snowflake?”

Ruy nodded. “I have thought-and hoped-this too. Now, we look into a stagnant puddle and discover a teeming universe of animalcules. We look up and discover not a closed system, but an infinity so vast that its size defies the human mind.”

Wadding frowned mightily. “Yes, and the same science that reveals these wonders is also the enabler of oblivion, of ‘atomic weapons,’ as I believe you called them, Cardinal Mazzare. What dark fruit of human hubris could be more pleasing to Satan, whose imprisonment in Hell fills him with burning envy of, and hatred for, the clean, fertile world of our Creator? How elegant and delicious a victory for him if he can tempt man to build weapons that can destroy this lesser Eden, can reduce God’s gift to ashes and ruin.”

Larry Mazzare nodded soberly. “I could not agree with you more, Cardinal Wadding. But science, and the technology that arises from it, is neither good nor evil. It is a lens, whereby the intents and hopes-both noble and petty-of its human wielders are magnified. Therefore, atomic weaponry also poses humankind the ultimate test of self-control, of the triumph of peace and grace over wrath and sin.”

Ruy’s eyes did not leave Mazzare. “As you yourselves successfully demonstrated toward the end of your twentieth century.”

Wadding frowned. “Don Ruy, that was but one crisis averted. The problem with such power, such weapons, is that one mistake is a final mistake. They are like the apple in Eden; they wait, eternally, for human frailty to induce a momentary lapse of reason or resolve-for that is all it takes to undo eternity: a momentary lapse.”

“True, Your Eminence,” nodded Ruy. “But I learned in my catechisms-and again, reading the resolutions that arose out of the Council of Trent-that the Lord our God never permits Satan to tempt or deceive us past our individual capacity to resist. It is a central tenet of the concept of free will, is it not?”

Larry Mazzare could not keep the sudden, bright smile off his face. “Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, I think it is you who should be doing my job. What do you think, Cardinal Wadding?”

Who was, strangely enough, smiling also. “I think an old soldier has just reminded an old priest how important the simplest truths of our faith are. I am in your debt, Don Ruy.”

Vitelleschi nodded primly. “Are the arguments and questions concluded? Very well. My recommendation to His Holiness are as follow: Cardinal Wadding’s warning that the Devil might have transported the town of Grantville to our time cannot be wholly discounted. However, I find that the arguments supporting the assertion that the whole town is a satanic creation to be well beyond the bounds of credibility. As Cardinal Mazzare points out, the magnitude of such a manifestation as Grantville, both physical and intellectual, far exceed those limits that we understand God to place upon satanic action. Cardinal Mazzare also argues-convincingly-that the arch-fiend stands to lose more from such a florid display of his power than he stands to gain. This does not constitute proof positive, but it does answer all reasonable doubts. Consequently, I hereby inform our Holy Father, Pope Urban VIII, that I can find no valid grounds for declaring Grantville a satanic construct.”

Urban nodded once. “I humbly thank both advocates for their spirited and learned address of the issue.” He raised his chin. “Father-General Vitelleschi, we shall proceed with the further inquiries as soon as it is convenient for you and our esteemed advocates. And I hope that our lay auditors”-he shot an impish glance in the direction of Ruy and Sharon-“shall be able to attend all our sessions, since it seems that, as ever, God sends his most important reminders through the most unexpected messengers.”

Ruy bowed deep thanks and sat.

When Urban looked away, Sharon grabbed his arm and kissed the side of Ruy’s still-serious face.

“To what do I owe the ambrosial drop of Heaven upon my cheek?” he asked.

“Well, why do you think, you wonderful fool?” Sharon hugged his arm. “Because you done good, honey; you done good.”

Giulio burst into the room loudly, as was his wont. “Rombaldo!”

“Yes, Giulio?”

“Valentino’s group-they have found our agents. Or rather, their bodies.”

Unfortunate that they were dead, but the two had been missing for too long for any other outcome to be probable. “Where did Valentino find them?”

Giulio rushed over to the map on the table; the pins denoting search teams were scattered across Venice and Lombardy. He stared intently for a moment and then jabbed a finger: “Here, in this town just south of Vicenza.”

“How were they killed?”

“By sword or knife.”

“How long ago?”

“At least a week, maybe more. The town fathers were keeping the whole affair quiet until they could figure out how to proceed.”

Meaning that the town fathers had prudently held off reporting a killing that did not seem random, and yet had unclear motivations. In their experience, that would signify a covert conflict between greater powers, a conflict in which they did not want to become involved.

“Very well. Have the other nearby teams converge upon this spot. Send word by our fastest riders: they have ten days to rendezvous with Valentino at this site.”

“And after that?”

“After that, Giulio, we let slip the leash and let our hounds run a pope to ground.”

“ Under ground, that is,” quipped Giulio broadly, “six feet under ground, to be exact.”

Rombaldo forced himself to smile. “Yes. Now, send the word; every minute we lose increases the chance that he will escape.”