1635: The Papal Stakes

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Linguanti rose to meet Valentino. “So, it is as we thought?”

Valentino nodded, came to the center of the dimly lit cave, and nodded for the man with the oil lamp to adjust the wick. The yellow glow brightened as Valentino scraped a quick map on the floor. “Yes, they are at the Villa Molini. We have seen their sentries-cleverly hidden-here, here, and here.” He indicated the three compass points of north, east and west. “They may have one or two more that we missed.”

“Probably behind them, to the west, too.”

Valentino shook his head at Odoardo’s suggestion. “No. They are shielded from the west by Monte Maggio. The only other way into the dell in which the villa sits-this very difficult pass from the Valle Terragnolo, up north-is where they might have another outpost. But for anyone to come at them that way, they would have had to travel by way of the Val Adige, almost all the way to Trento. And almost none of the news from this valley is going to pass over these high mountains to the other side, and vice versa. So no one on the Trento side of Monte Maggio would even know to come here, looking. So the up-timers and the pope can rest assured that their west is almost completely safe. And with their backs being up against that wall, we have no ready way to get around their pickets and come at them from behind.”

“So what do we do?”

Valentino touched the point on the map that indicated his group’s current position in the southernmost of the caves of Monte Cengio. “At dusk tonight, we start moving southeast, skirting Menara. Then, when we come to the low part of this arm of the valley, we turn west immediately, staying as far from Laghi as possible.”

Linguanti looked at the map. “That puts us well within a mile of Molini. An easy walk.”

“It would be, if the approaches weren’t observed.”

“So I ask again; what do we do?”

“We stay away from the most direct route, which they can observe from two points: the outpost they have just to the side of the path that leads to the villa, and the outpost they keep up north, on the western slopes of Monte Cengio. Instead, we will move across the path to the south, and sneak up on this small hill.”

“Where they have an outpost, also.”

“True, but we can get behind that outpost.”

“So once we are behind them, then what?”

“We bait them out.”

Odoardo guffawed. “What a great plan. If, as you suspect, they have a good number of professional troops, we’re not going to be able to bait them out into the open.”

“Of course not, oaf. We will be far more subtle. We will make faint noises to the front of their position. Nothing too provocative, but enough to get them to send out a scout. We will lead him on and, ultimately, into an ambush.”

“Which the others see, or hear, and set up an alarm.”

“No, because they will be dead by then.”

“How?”

Valentino smiled. “I wasted part of my misspent youth hunting. But I was not very good with a bow, and we didn’t have enough money for gunpowder. So I became quite proficient with this-” He reached back into his gear and pulled out the crossbow that all the men had noticed, commented upon, and apparently forgotten about. “These days,” he pontificated, “the crossbow is an underappreciated weapon. What it lacks in killing power it more than makes up for in silence. And that is how we will eliminate the others in the south watch-post: one by crossbow, and the last by Linguanti, here.”

“Oh? And what weapon does he carry?”

“Just this,” said Linguanti, who produced a very thin garrote with lethal fluidity.

“And how will you get close enough to use it?”

“Odoardo, think back-if you can remember anything earlier than a minute ago-and ask yourself: have you ever heard me utter so many words as these?”

“No.”

“And have you ever heard me make a sound when I move, or walk, at all?”

“Uh…no.”

“Neither will the last sentry.”

“Oh.”

Valentino smiled and finished. “And once we are done here”-he drew an X through the southern outpost-“the way is clear to the villa, except for walking patrols.”

“Which will see us and shoot.”

“Not if we wait and pass through the gap in their intervals. And if they do happen to see us and shoot, we will shoot back. Some of us will be killed, but at this point, with all our force concentrated in one place, and with us charging over the flat ground to the south of the villa, we will be upon them quickly. Meaning we will only have the interior guards to deal with. With our numbers, we will finish them quickly-as well as everyone else in the villa. And I mean everyone.”

Odoardo was frowning. “This still isn’t as easy as you said it was going to be when you hired us, Valentino. A pope, a few priests, no more than a dozen up-timers and their retainers. This is a bigger job. More dangerous.”

Valentino smiled. “You are welcome to depart now, Odoardo.” Valentino straightened up. “Anyone is. After all, the fewer of us there are, the fewer ways there are to split the payment. Reales equal to a year’s pay for Spain’s best three thousand man tercio. So I thought a slightly difficult job would be good news, Odoardo. After all, are you-are any of you-eager to have your share reduced by having too many men alive to collect?”

Valentino watched the eyes of his hired murderers rove cautiously about, doing the bloody math of how many men were needed for the job, how many men might die, and how to balance between maximizing the odds of success with the minimum number of final survivors. He saw greed-growing-and no fear. Which was exactly what he wanted to see.

“We heavily outnumber them, we have the advantage of surprise, and we will strike at night. My only concern is that you don’t get tempted to stick a knife in your mate’s back, in order to get a bigger share for yourself.”

Odoardo was still frowning. “There’s only one thing that surprises me about this plan, now.”

“And what is that?”

The huge man suddenly smiled. “That I like it.” He stood. “Let’s go kill a pope.”

Cardinal Antonio Barberini started when Sharon and Ruy emerged from the further shadows of the Garden Room a moment after he started laying out his pens and parchment. “Ambassadora, Don Ruy, I did not see you-”

“You were not supposed to, Your Eminence,” murmured Ruy. “Not until we knew you had entered alone.”

“What? Why do you-?”

“Your Eminence,” interrupted Sharon, “what I need to ask you is not something I want to share with the others.”

“Why? What is it?”

Ruy and Sharon approached Antonio. He did not feel fear, exactly, but a vague sense of dread at the gravity in their expressions.

“We need to ask you to gather some information for us, Your Eminence. Nothing improper, but not the kind of request we can make to any of your peers.”

“And what kind of information could you possibly want that you do not already have? You have heard all the proceedings as well as I have.”

“Yes, but we lack a critical perspective on them.”

Antonio Barberini frowned. “I assure you, I have no special sub rosa knowledge relevant to the proceedings.”

Ruy raised a conciliatory hand. “No, of course not, Your Eminence. But you may make inquiries where we-indeed, where no one else-may.”

Antonio shrugged. “It is strange you should think so; I am the only one who has no juridical role in the process. Mazzare and Wadding are advocates, Vitelleschi is the procedural judge, and my uncle listens. I simply take notes.”

“Yes, of course, Your Eminence-which is why you are the person of whom we must ask our questions. You are an intimate of the court, yet not intimately involved in its official deliberations.”

“Ah, now I see. Since I am the court’s nonentity, you do not violate the propriety of the hearings by asking questions of me.” Barberini smiled crookedly at Ruy. “Your diplomatic courtesy is impeccable, if somewhat depressing for me to hear. We all cherish loftier opinions of our importance than those warranted by our actual roles, I fear.”

Sharon smiled. “I’m sorry we have to go about it this way, Your Eminence. But we have no choice; everyone’s safety is at stake.”

Antonio felt anxious heat across his brow. “How may I help?”

Sharon set her shoulders before asking: “I need to know if your uncle thinks he’s going to decide to seek asylum with the USE or not.”

Antonio laughed. “Again, I suspect your guess is better than mine. And guess is all any of us can do, for I assure you, my uncle has said no more about our proceedings outside of this room than he has said within it.”

Sharon shrugged. “Well, for what it’s worth coming from me, I think your uncle was wise to avoid taking a direct hand in the proceedings. But even so, he is a party to them, and that makes it impossible for us to ask if they’ve led him to any decisions, yet. After all, since we’re personal friends with Cardinal Mazzare, that would be like asking, ‘Hey, Your Holiness, how’s our guy doing in the debate? Is he winning?’”

Antonio returned the smile. “Yes, I see your point. So you are speaking to me in the hope that I might whisper some favorable words in my uncle’s ear?”

Sharon shook her head. “I thought about that, but realized that even if you did consent to say something on our behalf, that would probably just hurt our cause. We’d be doing exactly what Cardinal Wadding is worried that Gustav or his representatives might do: try to meddle in Church affairs. So, no: that isn’t why we want to talk with you now. We just want to know what to prepare for.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, after tonight’s closing statements, your uncle is going to make up his mind pretty quickly. If he says ‘yup, I’m going to seek protection from the USE,’ we know how to proceed. But if he doesn’t-well, that creates difficulties.”

“Yes, I see that-but why did you wait to ask me about this until now?”

“Frankly, because we didn’t want to impose, and because we didn’t foresee how skilled a debater Wadding was going to be.”

Barberini shrugged. “Cardinal Wadding has made some excellent points, but he has hardly won any of the debates decisively. He may not have won any of them at all.”

Ruy offered a dubious frown. “Even if that is true, Your Eminence, Cardinal Wadding has always succeeded in adding a measure of doubt to whatever Cardinal Mazzare has asserted. And as your uncle said, if, at the end, there is any doubt remaining, he must consider those reservations to be God’s own voice whispering in his ear, urging him to avoid compromising the Church by accepting any help from the Swede. And if that were to happen-”

“Yes. I see.”

Sharon’s voice was sharp. “Do you? Do you see all the consequences?” Her eyes were both hard and desperate. “The assassins wouldn’t just come for him, or you: they’d come for all of us. And I’m not sure we have enough forces to protect us all, even if we’re bunkered in behind these walls.

“But if your uncle decides to go on a walkabout, I’d have to split those already insufficient forces. One part would remain on defense here until we could be safely extracted, while another would travel with your uncle as bodyguards and escorts. But if we split our forces that way, I’m pretty we’re just enabling the assassins to kill both groups, not just one. On the other hand, how can I not send an escort with your uncle? I can’t let a pope just wander out my front door without providing any help other than a full canteen and our best wishes.”

Barberini frowned. “Yes, that is a thorny problem indeed.”

Ruy leaned forward. “And will you help us with it, Your Eminence? That we might know what plans we need to make in order to save as many of our lives as possible?”

Barberini thought: there would be no use approaching the topic obliquely with his uncle. The pope was too shrewd and subtle not to immediately detect the real reason behind such an inquiry. So it would have to be made directly, and Urban VIII might be annoyed that Antonio was trying to use their familial bond to access what was, currently, privileged information. But given what was at stake, that was just too bad; the time had finally come for him to Vitelleschi strode into the room. He nodded to the three of them; if he detected anything conspiratorial in their close huddle, he gave no indications of it. As the others filed in behind the father-general, he raised his hands in the fashion they had all come to recognize as the call to order. “Are we gathered, then?”

“We are all here, Father-General,” replied Sharon, sitting down.

“Excellent. Then we shall begin…”

Mario Bianchi worked the handle of the flintlock pistol nervously in his palm, earning a sharp glance from the Marine corporal who had furnished him with the weapon. Mario crept to the edge of the shallow hilltop pit and looked into the darkness. “Corporal, I am worried about Private Cavendish. He has been gone for-”

“Hsst. Quiet, now, Bianchi. It takes a man a minute or two to investigate night sounds. But I think I hear him coming back, just there on our flank.”

The corporal, who had turned to listen more closely, jerked, his head seemingly slapped sideways. As the larger man fell, Mario saw the fletching of a cross-bow bolt protruding from his head only an inch above his ear.

Mario gasped, scuttled backward; a simple porter like his father before him, he had no experience, no training, that would make his first reaction anything other than one of abject terror.

And so his rapid recoil from the site of the corporal’s death brought him handily within the descending loop of Linguanti’s garrote.

Wadding made his final bow and took his seat. Ruy and Sharon exchanged long glances; the Irishman had merely recapped his arguments, but that had been disturbing enough. “You’re right,” she said. “He didn’t score any knockouts, but he might win on points.”

Ruy raised an eyebrow at her boxing metaphor. “I think I understand your idiom, my heart. However, what I found most distressing was Cardinal Mazzare’s silence.”

Sharon nodded. Yeah, why didn’t Larry say anything? Granted, the Irishman hadn’t spun any new rhetorical wheels, but maybe he had enough traction with the old ones to Larry Mazzare rose. As if he had heard her silent questions, he answered them: “I suspect that everyone in this room-and perhaps Cardinal Wadding most of all-must have wondered at my silence this past half hour. Partly, I did not want to interrupt my colleague unless he raised a new issue-but he did not. However, I also did not want to tax my audience, knowing that I would finish on a note as new and provocative as Cardinal Waddings’ were old and familiar.”

Ruy and Sharon exchanged raised-eyebrow looks. “Uh oh,” she whispered, “he’s doing it again: playing for all the marbles.”

Ruy nodded. “Yes; he is indeed swinging for the ramparts.”

“Fences,” corrected Sharon. “He’s swinging for the fences.”

“Did I not just say so?”

“No, you said ‘ramparts.’”

“Oh, let us not quibble over that. Surely, mine is the superior phrasing: how can there be any courage, any heroism, in swinging at a fence?”

“Well, why is it heroism when one of your countrymen charges at a windmill?”

“Dearest, that is entirely different! In that situation-”

“Hush, Ruy: listen.”

Mazzare’s voice was very low as he began. “I have been thinking about grace, Your Eminences, about living in a Christ-like manner, as our Savior exhorts us to do. I have also been giving much thought to Cardinal Wadding’s recounting of the ways in which possibly- possibly — the Church could be compromised if it accepts the aid of Gustav Adolf, whether directly or by proxy. And it is well that we have considered this, for if my colleague’s reservations were wholly without merit, they would have been dismissed by now.”

Barberini stopped writing and looked up, eyes wide. Vitelleschi’s eyebrows had lowered. One of the pope’s had risen. Only Wadding showed no response-other than a sudden rigidity in his unchanged posture and expression. Sharon studied him more closely: was the former Franciscan merely extremely attentive, or did she detect a hint of anxiety, as well?

“But, then,” continued Mazzare, “I wondered: if we must follow Christ’s example to attain grace, then must we not also consider the possibility that rejecting the aid of the USE might be an equal, or even greater, departure from behaving in a Christ-like manner?”

For the first time in the proceedings, a hint of a frown appeared on Urban’s face.

“As I promised at the outset,” said Mazzare with a smile, “I am suggesting a new-and provocative-perspective. But it comes to us from the life of Christ, himself. Specifically, it arises from his parable of the Good Samaritan.”

Mazzare’s voice seemed to expand. “We all know the parable: of a man-a Jew-fallen among thieves and left for dead. And we know of the priest who passed him by, and then the official of the temple who also ignored him, even though the stricken man was of their own faith. Instead, the person who stopped to help this dying Jew, the person who bound his wounds and tended to him at his own expense, was his enemy: he was a Samaritan, a group which was ‘hated by the Jews.’”

“You would put Christ in the role of a beaten Jew who had no power to resist?” Wadding’s voice had a slight edge in it.

“Well, that was not my point, Your Eminence, but yes, why not? What was Christ, as he limped to Golgotha, scourged and bent beneath the cross, but a beaten Jew who could not resist? The constraints upon his action were not those of physical limitation, of course, but of the requisite fulfillment of prophesy. But that difference is hardly significant, I think.”

Vitelleschi’s beard seemed to quiver in either anger or eagerness: Sharon could not tell which. “Well, if the parallel between the Church and the beaten Jew was not your primary point, Cardinal Mazzare, then please make your point clear to us all.”

“I shall, Father-General. My point is this: I began reflecting upon this parable and asking, so who acted with grace? The Samaritan. And how did he show his grace? By choosing to help his foe.

“But then I saw that there was another, subtler lesson to be found in the parable, a lesson about the extraordinary grace of God himself. For it was by God’s will that the beaten Jew came to be lying on the road in the path of the Samaritan, who then had a choice: to act in a Christ-like manner or not. If it were not for God placing that beaten enemy in the Samaritan’s path, he would have had no chance to tangibly overcome the pettinesses, the selfishnesses, the fears that reside in all of us. Because of God, the Samaritan had the opportunity to exercise and embody the grace to which we followers of Christ aspire.”

Mazzare paused, looked at all of his auditors. “So tell me: is it not hubris-the sin of pride-to declare that a Catholic priest, a church, even a pontiff may only play the part of the Good Samaritan, but never the beaten Jew? If we refuse to acknowledge that, just like the beaten Jew and the scourged Christ, we might benefit from the charity of others, we are refusing to embrace the humility that Christ himself displayed. And in so doing, we deprive other men of the possibility of demonstrating their grace, by refusing to let them help us even as the Good Samaritan helped the Jew who despised him.”

Mazzare paused. The Garden Room was utterly silent until he resumed. “The parallels to what we debate today are startling: the Church is in dire need of a Good Samaritan, but recoils when that assistance arrives in the person of Gustav Vasa, an enemy. Who, at this moment, could not only make us the beneficiaries of his kindness, but in so doing, perform a Christ-like act that would forever change the assumptions of antagonism that have existed between the two of us. God is providing both parties with a unique opportunity to grow in grace; all that remains to be seen is if we will embrace it.”

If, as Sharon thought, Wadding was formulating an objection, Mazzare was too quick for him. “Our first response to this perspective is doubt and skepticism: we are ready to think, ‘Gustav would only help us out of his own pride, only to indebt us.’ But that suspicion flies in the face of logic. If it wanted to, the USE could undo the Roman Church this very moment, simply by giving the forces in this villa the same orders that Borja has given to his assassins. Or, even simpler, Gustav could have ordered the ambassadora to turn the pope and his party over to the nearest noble family that was willing to have them.” Mazzare paused and looked around the room. “Of course, one wonders if the lords and ladies of this Serene Republic might fail the pope, just as the priest and the temple official failed their fellow Jew in the parable. Or, to put it another way, would the local aristocracy take the risks and be as steadfast as have the members of this USE embassy? With Borja’s power growing in Italy, and noble houses unwilling to displease the new order in Rome, I am not not at all sure they would.

“And let us not forget that without the help of this Good-and yes, Protestant-Samaritan, the Church’s present wounds could well prove mortal to not only its pope and its flock, but to the very basis of its authority. I do not exaggerate: consider the assured sequence of events if the rightful pope is lost. Borja refills the Consistory and forces it to name him the successor. He will be called pope, and believed to be so by the flock-which does not know that their good and true shepherd was murdered in a hidden place. And so they shall follow Borja-but to what end and what outcome? Will God provide an unlawful pope with infallibility in matters of faith and morals? Can he declare things bound, or loosed, in both Heaven and on Earth? And if not, then what power do the sacraments have? Are the new priests he illicitly ordains-and sends to preach bloody intolerance across Christendom-truly priests? And how is such damage to be undone, particularly when the Inquisition becomes the new model and modus operandi of the Roman Church?”

Mazzare looked up from under dark brows. “If the Church rejects the help of the USE, it must anticipate a future in which its name becomes an object of acrid hate upon every tongue. All Christendom will know and remember that, at this pivotal moment, our Church became an abattoir, that under Borja, it savagely corrupted the Gospels of love and hope to serve as twisted vindications for untold massacres, persecutions, and pogroms.”

Sharon now understood why Mazzare had not spoken during Wadding’s presentation: his sole objective had been to assure an uninterrupted space in which to summon forth this tidal wave of teetering cause-and-effect dominoes that were poised to fall one after the other in a tumbling chaos of culture-crushing consequences.

“Can we, in good conscience, refuse our non-Catholic brothers the opportunity to become our Good Samaritans, to reach out to us in this dark and dangerous hour? And if they do so, does it not signify that they deserve our love for all the days to come? For, in addition to being our rescuers, they will have shown that they, too, truly aspire to be Christ-like. And once joined by the undeniable proof of our common aspiration, by what reason would we resist the notion that the time is ripe for greater toleration among all Christ’s children?

“But these Good Samaritans cannot help us unless we are strong enough to admit our weakness and need, cannot save us unless we give them the chance to embody the very grace we are trying to preserve.”

Wadding stood without waiting for Vitelleschi to recognize him. “If you give the Protestants that chance, I say they will fail. And unless you are privy to God’s Will yourself, Cardinal Mazzare, you must at least admit that the Protestants may fail. That is the nature of free will: no true test of virtue can have a guaranteed outcome. And if they fail, they will bring about not only their own spiritual downfall, but our terrestrial destruction.”

Mazzare nodded. “That is true. And if they do fail and thus bring down the pillars of the temple, then let us trust that the Lord Our God will raise up His Church once again, just as He did His Son. But if they do not fail-tell me, Cardinal Wadding: how many millions, possibly billions, of lives might our act of hope save, on this and all future days? To risk such a choice is also to keep faith with what Christ tells us: that hope is second only to love-and so, to lose hope, is the greatest sin of all.”

Mazzare waited for Wadding to respond, but the Irishman said nothing. Mazzare turned toward Vitelleschi. “In my century, it was said that people tend to live up to-or down to-your expectations of them. If you expect them to transcend temptations and adversities, they tend to do so. If you presume they will fail, likewise, they will not disappoint your sad prediction.”

Vitelleschi’s eyes were like chips of obsidian. “So to summarize your closing remarks, Cardinal Mazzare, you would have us put our hope in the ‘good nature’ of Protestants? Of those who ‘protested’ and separated themselves from God’s Church?”

“No: I would have us put our hope in God. Because it is still He who moves within the good men who raise up their voices to Him in churches other than ours. They, too, have taken the indelible impress of their Creator’s grace, so strong is its power. And so I say, yes, have faith that they will show us the grace they have learned from Him, just as the Good Samaritan showed grace to the beaten Jew. In doing so, we are not putting our faith in any mortal man, but in the power and love of God to touch all those who honor him, regardless of the different ways in which that honor is shown.” Mazzare folded his hands and sat.

Vitelleschi rose slowly, staring back and forth between Mazzare and Wadding with an almost haunted look on his face. Then he swallowed, raised his chin, and declared: “These proceedings are concluded. Beginning tomorrow, I will consult with our Holy Father to determine how the Church will proceed in relation to the recommendations and counsel offered by the advocates. It is our intent to deliver a statement of-”

A ragged roar of muskets, coming mostly from the southern side of the villa, shocked Vitelleschi to silence-and Ruy into motion. “Gather the priests into our chambers,” he ordered Sharon, “and keep them together. Your Eminences, it is well you finished your debate this evening.”

“Why?” croaked Cardinal Barberini out of a dry throat.

“Because,” answered Ruy as he raced from the room and toward the nearest duty station of the villa’s security detachment, “it is unclear how many of us will be left alive in the morning.”