1635 The Papal Stakes (33 page)

Miro smiled. “I see you’ve been doing some extra reading.”

“Always do, before I get involved in money stuff.”

“A smart investor always considers the investment carefully.”

“Well, yeah, that too. But that’s not really what I meant.” Tom’s big feet started their customary rocking. “Making money is just not that important. Money comes, money goes, and it’s bullshit when it’s around. Makes people sick in their heart and their head. But right now, it seems there’s no choice but to live with it. So if I’m going to get involved in something where I have to worry about how much money I am going to contribute, and what it’s going to be used for, I look really carefully at what I’m buying. I mean, is the project worth all that worry? Is it going to make that big a difference?” Tom’s feet stopped imitating a pair of big, matched metronomes. “Your balloons are worth it. Until I had read through the specs of the hydrogen airship, I didn’t realize just how much they’re worth it. And I’ve got to have a concrete understanding of those details before I can bring myself around to getting involved on the money side of a project. Because if I didn’t, then when all the shit about costing and pricing and amortization of assets begins—and it always does—then I’d get disgusted and walk away. What keeps me committed to a project is what it’s about, what it’s achieving. The money stuff—win, lose, or draw—just makes me want to run the other direction.”

Miro shook his head and smiled. “Tom, did you ever read the Talmud?”

“Uh, some. Not much. Long time ago. Why?”

“Because although you could not sound less like it, some of your opinions about money—about everything worldly, for that matter—are very reminiscent of its wisdom.” Miro sighed, as he looked at the black plume that no longer had any visible flames at its base. “I’m relatively sure that my childhood rabbi would find as much to disapprove of in me as he would find salutary in you. No doubt he would suggest that God destined our paths to cross so you could improve my materialistic soul.”

Tom scoffed. “Well, first off, you’re not the materialist you think you are. I see your eyes when you talk about those balloons. I know a dreamer when I see one, man. I’ve been looking in the mirror a long time, you know.” Tom grinned sheepishly. “And if you were all about money, you wouldn’t be down here on this ‘at cost’ gig, overseeing the rescue of my son and the safety of the pope.”

“And a shining success I’ve made in both cases,” Miro grumbled.

“Okay, Estuban, now let’s not talk pity-party shit, okay? If anything,
I
was the one in a god-damned rush to get Harry to Rome; you were the one who wanted to wait for a few more resources, in case the job was ‘more problematic.’ Your very words. Your only problem is that you listened to a distraught father and let Harry flex his authority muscles, instead of laying down the law. But you’re the new guy, and Harry has a lot of successes, so basic human dynamics got in the way. And your instincts about those dynamics were not bad ones, either. Besides, I’m sure Ed Piazza and Don Francisco gave you a few sermons on being a team player, and the problems of having authority over people who really didn’t know you, and who had a pretty good track record of getting things done on their own. Probably said something like, ‘don’t think of yourself as a leader; think of yourself as a coordinator.’”

Miro kept his face blank; actually, Piazza had used the term “facilitator” rather than “coordinator,” but in every other particular, Tom Stone’s rendition of Miro’s sessions with Grantville’s intelligence cadre was eerily accurate.

“And as regards the pope, you’re doing the best job anyone can. You’ve got more security forces inbound, and the safe house will be ready in a week. And that”—he pointed at the pillar of smoke—“probably couldn’t have been stopped. Again, you called the event before it occurred. ‘Too big and too much traffic to be secured properly.’ That’s what you said when we walked around the compound after the crash, figuring out how to protect the plane from Borja’s saboteurs.”

“Being right doesn’t help if you aren’t effective, too.”

“Man, you sound like some kind of business school hard-ass, now. Listen: you want to beat yourself up? Fine. But do it on your own time, and know—
know
—that it’s all bullshit. You did what you could. You protected the plane. They got the gas.” Tom shrugged. “They’ve got professionals, too. Which is another prophetic point you made the day you got here: ‘just because you can’t see enemy, doesn’t mean they’re not here.’”

Miro nodded. “And have been here for weeks, probably. This was simply the first time they had to tip their hands. If they hadn’t acted, we’d have had the plane working again within a few weeks and removed the pope. Or could have quickly extracted the Wrecking Crew a day’s sail beyond Ostia after a successful rescue in Rome. Now, without a plane, we’re the ones racing against the clock, not them.”

Tom nodded back at Miro. “But, thank the Great Pumpkin, we’ve still got your balloon, because if we didn’t, it would be ‘game over, man.’ So—” Tom leaned forward, fists resting gently on his knees “—what’s the new plan?”

PART THREE

June 1635

A thousand screams the heavens smote

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Thomas North watched the dark shape of the boat emerge from the morning mist that lay upon the Laguna Veneta like a carpet of gray cotton. “They’re here,” North called over his shoulder. The sounds of meal-taking in the small pilgrim’s refectory behind him diminished, succeeded by the clatter of plates being collected and removed for washing.

Sherrilyn came to stand beside him. “Can you see who it is?”

“I can barely make out the boat.” Thomas smiled. “But if you’re willing to make a wager—”

“With a sneaky bastard like you? Never.”

Thomas grinned, remembering how, just five days earlier, she had actually out-bluffed the redoubtable Harry Lefferts during a marathon session of five-card stud. Despite the excellent sailing characteristics of their lateen-rigged boat, they had nonetheless spent half a day lying becalmed just south of Bari, waiting for a favorable wind that would bring them to the eastern side of the Adriatic and the northerly current that predominated there. Toward the end of that game, she’d taken the hand on a busted flush, eliciting groans and howls from Gerd, and Paul, the only other members of the Wrecking Crew to leave Rome. These sounds of distress had so alarmed the crew of their small Dalmatian
gajeta
that the first mate had rushed over to see who’d been injured.

The card-playing had also been an icebreaker for increasing interaction with the Irish Wild Geese. However, with the exception of Wadding, who had apparently learned the rules simply by watching a few hands, they became more perplexed as the play progressed. The earl of Tyrone had pronounced the game as a debased variant of
primero
and turned his back upon it. Owen Roe—a bit more congenial than his young earl, and far more even-tempered—unsuccessfully tried to understand it as a new form of the English game
brag
. The other Irish might have found some interest in the game, but, between being poorer than indigent church mice, and more interested in chatting up the up-timers, their focus strayed from the rules and the cards.

After that, the stormy Adriatic had kept them busy, scudding too close to the Dalmatian coast, beacons warning them away from headlands at the last safe minute on more than one occasion. Thomas suspected it was more the extraordinary competence of the crew—a mix of Croats, Ragusans, and Italians—that had saved them in these instances: their knowledge of the coast was uncanny, even at night.

The Venetian lagoon had marked the abrupt end of the crew’s collective navigational knowledge, but one of the Italians had shipped out from piers on the Lido on two prior occasions, and so was able to guide them to their destination: San Francesco del Deserto, a small islet just north of St. Erasmo. There had been some debate over that choice; Harry and North had wanted to head straight in to Venice itself, simply because they knew of no other way to contact Tom Stone and the embassy. Wadding, in his typically quiet way, had pointed out that if Borja was indeed guilty of all that he seemed guilty of, then the main island would be watched by his confidential agents and should be avoided. Thomas had been pleased, but not entirely surprised, at Wadding’s revised opinion of the political realities in contemporary Italy. The boat ride had provided ample opportunity to disabuse good Father Luke of his rather optimistic hopes that Borja’s worst atrocities were, in fact, simply malign propaganda.

Once apprised of the trail of evidence that connected the assassinations, disappearances, and almost capricious slaughter of civilians to Borja’s decrees, Wadding’s nimble and nuanced mind quickly became an invaluable asset. Their current billet was a case in point: only Wadding had known about the small Franciscan monastery on the islet of San Francesco del Deserto. It was a place that had few visitors, and all of those came for purposes of hermitage or induction. It had no commerce, the monks acquiring their scant needs from the smaller, rustic islands nearby. A perfect place to arrive in Venice and yet remain unobserved and quite comfortable.

Bog hoppers or not, North admitted, the Irish were masters of surreptitious activity; they had little choice, given the stern occupation under which they struggled. Not that North would ever say so aloud, but he was of the opinion that his own countrymen had really gone too far in the subjugation of Ireland, and that there was now no way to reverse the situation, much less undo the damage. Of course, the Irish weren’t exactly shining exemplars of Christian charity and restraint, either. North suspected that when the parable of “turn the other cheek” was read out in Irish churches, the priests half-leaned out of their pulpits and whispered
sotto voce
behind a confidential hand, “except when the barstard is a feckin’
sassenach
, o’ course.” Such were the contextualized pieties of the Emerald Isle.

But also, such were its lessons in subtlety. At Wadding’s instruction, a sealed message had gone out yesterday at dawn, entrusted to the order’s youngest novice, who was traveling to nearby St. Erasmo for provisions. While there, he had sought and found a slightly younger childhood friend who was also an aspirant to the order. A brief chat after morning prayer, a blessing, and a lira, and that young aspirant was on his way to the main island to pass the ciphered message on to the couriers’ collective that handled afternoon deliveries to the USE embassy.

And apparently, the message had reached the desired parties. Hopefully, it had also avoided detection by Borja’s many agents. But even if they had intercepted the communiqué, it would do them little good. The cipher was a disposable code, and was only one of the ways in which the monks had protected the message. Only a priest familiar with the legends of St. Francis, who had reputedly made a hermitage on the islet where they were hiding, would understand the allusive and symbolic cant in which it was written.

But even if Borja’s agents somehow managed to decipher all of that, they would only have learned that Ambassador Stone and Don Estuban were requested to travel to San Francesco del Deserto this morning. How they would get there was a matter left to those summoned. They had no doubt employed a variety of precautions, probably involving a rendezvous of boats in the predawn, to defeat interception. And if Borja’s minions decided to land on the islet itself and attack—

Thomas turned around; Owen Roe O’Neill was inspecting his pepperbox revolver. Standing by his side, the earl of Tyrone was scowling at the weapon, muttering that a sword was the proper weapon of a warrior and a man. Harry Lefferts had just finished reassembling the shotgun he’d field-stripped after racing through his breakfast. More than half a dozen of the Irish, seasoned in the Low Countries campaigns despite their scant years, lounged about the kitchen door. Dangerous men in a fight, they huddled there like so many young boys, hoping for the favor of an extra roll or rasher of bacon from the indulgent friar-cook. Surveying this array of both mechanical and human weapons, Thomas North couldn’t help smiling at the thought of what a bunch of assassins would encounter if they foolish enough to attack this island. A fitting line from one of the up-time movies he had memorized suggested itself: “Go ahead; make my day.”

“Well, are you coming—
sassenach
?”

Thomas North looked up and found Owen Roe O’Neill looking at him. With a smile. “That would be ‘Lord Sassenach’ to you,
cultchie
.”

“And that would be ‘Lord Cultchie’ to you, Lord Sassenach.”

North couldn’t help smiling back. “It seems we have come to an agreement on the mutually odious nature of our relationship.”

“So it seems. Now, are you coming, or are you planning on sneaking off and stealing the sacramental wine when no one’s about?”

“You mean they leave it unlocked?”

“Only because they don’t know about you. Come along, then.”

Miro leaned back when North had finished giving his report. He looked at Tom Stone, who waved the four USE Marines out of the room to join the four already outside. He looked down the table at the O’Neills. John looked back, expressionless. Owen waited a moment for his earl to act, and then nodded at the Wild Geese, who joined the Marines. Miro nodded his thanks to Owen, who nodded back. John looked sideways at his much older cousin, annoyed.

Tom Stone cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to clear the room, but we’re going to start talking plans. Seems like the moment to minimize the number of people hearing them.”

John O’Neill crossed his arms. “I can trust my men. To the death.”

“I believe that, Lord O’Neill, but tell me this: do they ever get drunk? Talk in their cups? Do they keep track of who’s new in a shared billet and who isn’t? Do they remember that every innkeep, serving girl, farrier, stable hand, prostitute might be a potential informer? Because only people who can maintain that kind of highly suspicious frame of mind should be in this room.”