1636: The Cardinal Virtues (8 page)
Read 1636: The Cardinal Virtues Online
Authors: Eric Flint,Walter H Hunt
Tags: #Fiction, #Alternative History, #Science Fiction, #Action & Adventure, #General
Chapter 10
March, 1636
Turin
Just after Twelfth Night, Monsieur Gaston and his entourage had departed the Castello del Valentino. The duke and duchess were relieved—at least in private—and life returned to normal.
In the workshop, Baldaccio paid more attention to Terrye Jo than ever, trying to bring her his own peculiar brand of seventeenth-century science. The long winter nights turned his attention to the stars: a new telescope, with hand-ground lenses from a new glass factory in Magdeburg, had arrived during the second week in January, and the
Dottore
had arranged to have it mounted on the top of one of the corner towers. He would go up late at night wrapped in a ridiculous fur coat and peer through it, taking crabbed notes that he would transcribe onto astrological charts. There was a tussle when he pulled down a portion of the latticework supporting the antenna; whatever his professorial chops, his researches didn’t trump Terrye Jo’s radio. By the next evening it was up again. He had a personal interview with His Grace to clarify the matter and it was never repeated.
Undeterred, Baldaccio had shown her the horoscope he’d cast for her, explaining that the “imbalance in her humours” (or some other damn thing) resulted from having Venus in Scorpio or Jupiter in retrograde, and that she’d have to stop pining for Monsieur Gaston and find a proper man to bed with if she wanted to get everything back in balance.
She held back from strangling Baldaccio or dropping a heavy weight on his head. Meanwhile, Artemisio offered to slit his nose and ears.
“No one will know who did it,
Donna
,” he said. “And I shall console you in your misery.”
“
Everyone
will know you did it,” she answered. “And I won’t need consoling.”
He gave her a sad expression that he must have practiced. She was unmoved.
As the winter wore on Terrye Jo spent some time getting to know
GJBF
. He—she supposed it was a he: the sender communicated exclusively in French, so it probably wasn’t an up-timer—was slow at first and, while he was accurate, he didn’t use most of the standard contractions and shortcuts all telegraphers knew. She worked with him and his speed and familiarity gradually improved.
The handle
GJBF
, it happened, stood for
Gaston Jean-Baptiste de France
—Monsieur Gaston himself had picked it out.
GJBF
called himself a
créature
, which Terrye Jo thought sounded very demeaning, as if he was the lowest kind of servant. But
GJBF
explained that it pointed at a particular kind of relationship, one in which responsibility went both ways:
GJBF
was completely loyal to his patron, and Monsieur Gaston owed his
créature
a certain kind of protective care when he “came into his inheritance.”
Terrye Jo came to realize more and more what that meant. Gaston’s “inheritance” was the throne of France. He had been exiled from his own country for conspiring against it, but instead of hanging him or beheading him or shooting him like a rabid dog, King Louis and Cardinal Richelieu had finally sent him into exile—four years ago, not long after the Ring of Fire. It didn’t make any sense to Terrye Jo. She asked
GJBF
why Monsieur Gaston was still alive and he seemed shocked that she’d even ask.
Gaston wasn’t her patron and his brother wasn’t her king. Duke Amadeus and Duchess Christina weren’t her duke and duchess either: the duke was her boss, no more and no less. But it still made her feel uneasy. This was political intrigue, maybe leading to treason, and it passed through her radio,
SPAR
to
GJBF
and back again. The queen of France was pregnant; she was hidden somewhere; and
GJBF
was trying frantically to find out where. If he found out he would tell her, and eventually that news would find its way back to Monsieur Gaston . . . and then something would happen.
She felt bad for the queen and told the duchess about it. Christina had given birth to a daughter in November. Amadeus had hoped for a son, of course, but was very happy that the duchess had made it through childbirth. Terrye Jo knew that a daughter meant that Christina would likely be pregnant again soon.
“Hm,” the duchess said to her when she expressed her concern about Queen Anne. “I don’t know why you’d feel that way. She’s been in danger from my brother Gaston for years.”
Terrye Jo had found her in the nursery. Most of the time the little princess—Margherita Violante—was in the care of nursemaids, but Christina was unusually affectionate for a seventeenth-century noblewoman. Terrye Jo wondered to herself if this was a result of the Ring of Fire, or whether she’d been this way with the other children. Whatever the case, the duchess was in the nursery quite often, not simply having the baby brought to her.
She had sent the nanny on an errand at once, as soon as Terrye Jo had mentioned the French queen’s name. Now she stood looking over the crib, where her infant daughter lay quietly sleeping.
“But now that she’s pregnant—”
“She’s been pregnant before. The poor thing has never carried to term. Why should this time be any different?”
Christina didn’t seem terribly worried or sympathetic. In a way she sounded like a mean girl from Grantville High.
“This is the first time since the Ring of Fire,” Terrye Jo said. “Maybe there’s an up-timer doctor.”
The duchess thought about this for a moment. “That’s possible, I suppose. Someone from your people might be able to help her—but again, some women simply can’t bring a child to term. It’s a defect in their bodies. There’s been so many problems, I wonder why Louis hasn’t just put her aside, sent her back to Spain.”
“I thought he couldn’t do that.”
“With God all things are possible,” she answered, crossing herself. “Without issue, the marriage could be considered unconsummated, and His Holiness could set it aside on petition. Lord knows he could have found a more suitable partner.”
“Suitable?”
“More . . . fertile. More able to draw him out. Though at the time we all thought . . .” she let the sentence hang.
“It seems pretty underhanded.”
“My dear.” Christina said. “You are so delightfully naïve. This sort of thing happens all the time. Anne has been unhappy in France; some is her own doing, some is Louis’—he never understood how to treat his queen. Some of her unhappiness is due to our mother: she couldn’t stand the idea that anyone would come between her and her son. And then there’s the cardinal.” She frowned. “I’m sure he’d rather that my brother have an heir, and it’s a positive wonder that he hasn’t arranged it somehow. But Louis was always . . .”
“Always what?”
She didn’t answer for several moments, as if she was trying to find the right word. The little princess whimpered very quietly, and Christina reached out a hand to touch her daughter’s forehead.
Terrye Jo had an idea what Christina wanted to say, but didn’t know what they called it in the seventeenth century.
“Sensitive,” the duchess finally decided.
Sensitive
, Terrye Jo thought.
That’s a good word.
“Sure. But maybe this time it’s different.”
“I doubt it. In fact, if there
is
issue, I would have to be convinced that Louis is the father. Some women are defective; some men are defective as well.”
“So . . . Monsieur Gaston—”
Christina held up her hand. “My dear Teresa. I shall give you a piece of advice, and I trust you will take it. It would be far better if you simply did the work that our duke or my royal brother has set you to do without question or concern, and let it go at that. Gaston will return this spring, I am sure of it, and things will take their course. It would be best for you not to oppose my brother . . . or my husband.”
“I never intended to oppose anyone.”
The duchess gave her a long, hard, appraising look, but it wasn’t any more fierce than a middling-scary drill sergeant.
“I shall take your word, Teresa. We will speak no more of this.”
◊ ◊ ◊
Up-time, when she was little, Terrye Jo would journey far from Grantville in her mind with the help of the radio. Her dad had told her the usual stories about listening to Pirates games late at night with his little transistor—but this was the 1980s, and she had better equipment: a boom box that her uncle had bought her for Christmas. It could pick up Pittsburgh, and Wheeling, and even Detroit if the weather was right. Hearing the words
The Great Voice of the Great Lakes
coming out of the tubby little box late at night made her realize how
big
the world was and how small Grantville was.
It was still small, and in a way
this
world was even bigger—no airplanes, no superhighways, only a few coal-powered trains. Things were farther apart, and the radio spectrum was far more sparse. But it wasn’t empty: especially in the last year there had been more and more broadcasts of one sort or another—the messages were almost all in the clear, and mostly in German or Amideutsch, with some French and Italian mixed in. During her shifts in the radio room she found herself returning to her former diversion. She would start at the bottom of the dial and slowly move up, listening for some operator’s signal out in the dark, most often sending dots and dashes in short, fitful bursts with lots of errors and
QSM
s requesting a re-send.
It was boring stuff. Weather reports, gossip, sometimes the death of a nobleman or the birth of his child . . . no baseball games, no world news reports, no entertainment, just the steady and unsteady signals of Morse code sent out into the night.
Here I am
, the signals said.
Here we are
.
One cold spring night in late March she had gotten about a third of the way up the dial when she heard a clear, firm signal—a fist she hadn’t heard before, an operator who knew what he was doing. The other guy wasn’t too bad, but the first one was a real pro. She assumed it was an up-timer at first, someone who had learned to send before the Ring of Fire. But she realized that there was no reason to think that—anyone who spent a few months working at it could become proficient. Henri could already send and transcribe almost as fast as Terrye Jo, and most of the other operators weren’t far behind.
The messages were in French. They used expressions and phrases that she didn’t completely understand, but after listening for a half an hour she was able to start making sense of it. One of the senders was speaking for someone he called
Le Maréchal
; the other referred to
Le Cardinal
.
It was high-level stuff, and it was coming in the clear.
The idea that she was listening in on something that should have required a security clearance was a bit scary. She certainly knew who
Le Cardinal
must be—that had to be Richelieu, so that end of the conversation was in Paris.
Le Maréchal
was in Lyon, over the mountains; there was some sort of army there, a couple of hundred miles from Turin.
Were they getting ready to invade Savoy? She knew very well what Monsieur Gaston thought of Richelieu, and Gaston was on very friendly terms with the duke . . .
But Victor Amadeus would know if there was an army on his border, ready to invade,
she thought.
Of course, Lyon isn’t
exactly
on the border with Savoy.
Why were they there? France’s main war theater was Lorraine, and if anything they’d want troops in the field facing the Low Countries or the USE. What was the point of having an army hundreds of miles to the south?
In any case
Le Maréchal
, whoever he was, had a damn good telegraph operator working for him.
She noted the transmission frequency on her pad, intending to check in on it again the next night, and was about to sign off when she heard a snippet that made her sit up. The operator for
Le Maréchal
commented that the
entraînement spécial—
‘special training,’ whatever that was—had been going very well . . . and that
Colonel Maddox
had been an excellent investment.
Maddox
, Terrye Jo thought to herself. There was no way to be sure, but . . . it couldn’t be Ms. Maddox—Sherrilyn Maddox, her old nemesis and P. E. teacher? It might almost make sense, though. Maddox had joined Harry Lefferts’ Wrecking Crew, so she was out there somewhere; why not with a French army? Did that mean that Harry and his posse were all there too, teaching
Le Maréchal
their own particular methods for raising hell?
She didn’t know what it meant, and wasn’t sure if it was relevant, and even if it was if she should tell Amadeus, or Monsieur Gaston, or someone in Magdeburg.
After moving the dial away from that frequency, she broke one of her own firm rules for the radio room. She took the top sheet from the note pad, and the two sheets underneath that might have an impression from her pencil, and tucked them away in an inner pocket. If she’d learned anything from history at Grantville High—or in the few years since the Ring of Fire—it was that wars sometimes got started by accident. One piece of information, overheard by someone or interpreted the wrong way, could lead to the worst kind of consequences.
When Sylvie came in at midnight to take her shift, Terrye Jo said nothing about it. The other did not seem to notice the missing pages . . . but as she made her way up to her quarters they felt like a leaden weight.
Chapter 11
April, 1636
Sacra di San Michele, Savoy
At the ruined abbey of San Michele on the south side of Mount Pirchiriano, two soldiers stamped their feet and blew on their hands to try to keep warm. By the calendar, spring was three weeks old—but the snow on the ground and the icy wind put the lie to it.
“What did we ever do to Monsieur to get posted here, Jacques?” asked the younger soldier. He was tall and trim, and affected the same style of moustache and beard as his master.
The other man, shorter and older, turned aside and spat by way of answer. He had seen a considerably greater number of seasons, and didn’t bother much with fashion. He also didn’t ask questions anywhere near as much.
“Are you sure that he will be here?” Jacques continued.
“He told us he will come, Pierre, then he will come. I know better than to disobey him.” He gave his young companion a hard look as if to say,
and if you have any sense, you’d best do the same.
“Why in this God-forsaken place?”
“Hah.” Jacques scratched his beard. The ruins fit that description pretty well: the big stone structure with a tall tower and stone outbuildings sprawling all over the side of the hill was completely abandoned. “
God-forsaken
. You have the makings of a court fool, my young friend. There hasn’t been very much of a presence up here since some pope or other threw the monks out of here ten or fifteen years ago . . . though I don’t know how blessed it was when there
were
monks up here. But the answer to your question should be obvious even to a clown—it’s miles from everywhere, but commands a good view of the road that leads over the mountains from the west all the way to Turin. A perfect place for a secret meeting.”
“And we’re here . . .”
“To make sure it stays secret,” Pierre said. “The young bastard will be coming from
that
way—” he pointed west, toward the road that bent toward the little village of Bussoleno—“and Monsieur is traveling from Tuscany and should come up
that
way.” He pointed in the other direction. “Then, I would guess, we will journey together to Turin.”
“Seems like a lot of trouble to go to. But maybe he likes the view, Pierre.”
“Shut up.”
Before Jacques could respond, there was a high-pitched whistle. Jacques and Pierre drew their swords and stepped next to the tower, each looking in a different direction. After a few moments, two horsemen approached, climbing the hill in plain sight. Even from the distance, Jacques could pick out the livery of the house of Vendôme.
The two men put up their swords and approached.
Louis de Vendôme, Duke of Mercoeur, cut a fine figure. Tall and handsome, he was an excellent horseman and—Pierre and Jacques knew—a talented swordsman. During the last few years as he had accompanied Monsieur Gaston, there had been numerous occasions for him to demonstrate that skill in affairs of honor. The soldiers knew their place and stood respectfully as Louis dismounted. He was traveling light and fast, with two gentlemen in waiting and a valet, who dismounted and followed in turn. The servant caught the reins of the horses and led them carefully up the slope behind the others.
“Is he here?” Louis said.
“Not yet, Your Grace,” Pierre said. “We have been watching for him.”
The nobleman turned away, looking down the road and then up toward the towering, broken façade of the abbey.
“God-forsaken place,” he said.
Jacques smirked at Pierre, out of sight of the duke; Pierre scowled at him, then turned to the nobleman. “Yes, my lord. But it is as His Highness commanded.”
“Yes, yes.” He kicked the base of the tower, loosening mud and snow from his boots. “We’re going to go inside. Keep careful watch and alert me when he approaches.”
“Of course, my lord.”
He said nothing further, but beckoned to his two gentlemen companions. They began to walk up a narrow stone stair toward an arched portal that led to the interior.
The valet, holding the reins of the horses, looked at Pierre and Jacques, as if they might tell him where to stable them. When they didn’t respond, he led them slowly around the base of the abbey to a place out of the wind and out of sight of the road below.
◊ ◊ ◊
When Monsieur Gaston arrived a short time later, Louis and his companions had had a chance to walk around the ruins, and had located a place that had probably served as a refectory for the monks. It had a number of broad tables and benches, weather-beaten but largely intact; when the monastery was closed down, the lower windows had been boarded up, keeping most of the weather out. There was evidence that some animals had made their lairs there, and someone not too long ago—probably during this winter—had built a fire in the hearth, but the place was otherwise deserted.
“Charming,” Gaston said as he came down the little stair into the refectory. Louis had been giving his attention to some of the carvings in the stonework while his gentlemen lounged on the benches, their feet up on the tables. They scrambled to their feet and offered a leg to the prince, earning a scowl from Louis; they were supposed to be attending him.
Louis was even more annoyed that the two ruffians set to keep watch hadn’t warned him of Gaston’s arrival. But he was determined to show none of this to the prince.
“Good day, Uncle. I trust you had a pleasant journey.”
Gaston drew off his riding gloves and slapped them on his thigh, then tucked them into his belt. “Oh, yes.
Bracing
. But this venue will afford us some privacy.”
Louis nodded. “That it will.” He gestured to his retinue. “Go make yourself useless elsewhere.”
They bowed and made their way out of the refectory, closing the heavy wooden doors behind them.
“It’s so hard to find good help,” Gaston said.
“Nearly impossible. But it’s all my father could spare. At least they both speak passable Spanish, so they were helpful eyes and ears in Madrid.”
Gaston gestured to a table, and the two men took seats opposite. “And how was Madrid?”
“Boring. His Majesty scarcely lets anyone see him directly; Olivares makes sure of that. It’s all . . . what is that up-timer expression? ‘Hurry up and wait.’ Even the count-duke took more than a week to give me an audience.”
“Cheek. But what you would expect from a Spaniard?”
“Just so.”
“What did he say?”
“It is as informative,” Louis answered, “to relate what he did
not
say. Señor Olivares commended you on your wisdom with regard to support for Cardinal Borja. He allowed that his master the king continued to be troubled by the apparent disrespect shown to his royal sister by your royal brother, and was fretful about the recent actions of some up-timers on Mallorca.”
“Interesting. Did he elaborate on that last?”
“Not in any detail. Apparently some prisoners taken during the—unrest in Rome, as he termed it—had escaped custody, and one of the king’s most trusted
hidalgos
had accompanied them.”
“Apparently he cannot find enough good help either,” Gaston said, chuckling at his own wit.
“As you say, my lord. In any case, he is curious as to the effect a male heir might have on the political situation in France, and on your own situation with respect to our king.”
“He knows
exactly
what a male heir would do,” Gaston said. All trace of humor had left his face. “The count-duke de Olivares would be extremely unlikely to receive my envoy should my royal sister-in-law bring a healthy son into the world.”
“He noted that your brother—and the cardinal—are being extremely careful on that account. Indeed, he asked me if we knew anything of Queen Anne’s whereabouts. His master sought to correspond with her, and had been told by his envoy in Paris that such letters could be sent to the cardinal and they would be duly forwarded.”
“I assume King Philip was dissatisfied with that answer.”
“
I
assume,” Louis said, “that King Philip had not actually posed the question. In any case, Olivares assumes that we know no more about Anne’s location than he did. I demurred, and I hope that I conveyed the sentiment that if we did know, it was nothing we were prepared to share with him at this time.”
“Clever.”
“Thank you, Uncle. I don’t know if I convinced him, but I might have planted a seed of doubt. In any case, I made it clear that regardless of the outcome of this . . . diversion . . . you were not prepared to fade into obscurity, and further, you considered the count-duke a friend and ally.”
“What was his response?”
“That he was gratified, but that friends and allies sought mutual objectives as a result of mutual assistance.”
“A
quid pro quo
. What does he want?”
“Oh, a great deal. A very great deal. Were you to ascend the throne, he would want you to publicly disavow Pope Urban; to make peace in Lorraine and remove the threat to Hapsburg troops in the Germanies; to permit free passage of Spanish troops through French territory—”
“Indeed!”
“Yes, Sire. And, of course, eradication of heresy in His Most Christian Majesty’s domains—both here and abroad in the plantations. The other . . . requests . . . were merely conversational; but this last one seemed to be of particular moment. There I think he speaks not as the minister, but as the servant of his king.”
“Let me speculate,” Gaston said. “He wants France to be rid of the Huguenots.”
“Essentially.”
“You didn’t commit to anything.”
“Of course not. But neither did he. Olivares is canny, Uncle—very much like the cardinal. The Spanish face the past, by and large, but I think he stands apart from the rest of the court. He may even have a radio machine.”
“The Spanish have no radios. They consider them tools of the Devil, and the Ring of Fire a work of Hell. They may even be right in that estimation.”
The duc de Mercoeur paused for a moment to evaluate his uncle, trying to discern what was meant by the statement.
“That is their official policy,” he continued. “But the count-duke seemed altogether too well informed. I would not underestimate him. I did not see any up-timers at the court, or in Olivares’ household, but as we have seen, the skill required to operate the machine is modest. In Turin, the up-timer woman was training
servants
to do so.”
“All right.” Gaston ran a finger across his moustaches. “The count-duke de Olivares could be a very powerful ally, as I suspected. But we shall have to hold him close, or he could turn on us. My mother said as much.”
“And how does the queen mother?”
“She frets about everything, and chafes at being in Florence. She would rather be back in Paris, but knows that it is unlikely to happen, even in the case that a new royal heir is born. I can’t see her returning as long as the cardinal is alive. But even if she could, she would want to take back her old place.
“My brother the king would never permit it, and if I were king . . . I am not Louis, my Marguerite is much different from Anne, and enough years have passed by. We do agree on one thing: that the cardinal must go. I made no commitments to her other than that.”
“You know that our family supports you completely in that matter, Gaston.”
“The House of Vendôme has been made to suffer at his hands, Louis. I am sure your father will relish seeing him fall.”
“He would be glad to help in any way. So would my brother and I.”
“I know, my good nephew, and I prize your loyalty. If Richelieu were brought low, one way or another, I could even accept my exile and my brother Louis could reign in peace. I would be content, for France would be delivered from its tyranny. We will also be able to curtail the influence of up-timers—they are no good for France, and they will have to be swept away as well.”
“Up-timers.”
“Yes,” Gaston said. “They have stolen France’s glorious future and replaced it with one that does not belong to this world and this century. We can take that back. And we will.”
Louis de Vendôme did not reply, and kept his face impassive, but while Gaston seemed utterly sincere in his assertion that he would be satisfied, Louis could not help but believe otherwise. Disposing of Cardinal Richelieu was his white-hot ambition, but supplanting his brother as king of France was scarcely less so. As for the business of the up-timers—if that was the means of his desire, then so be it. Louis did not care one way or the other.
But the kingship . . . that was something else.
You will never surrender that ambition, my good uncle,
Louis thought.
My father will never be king, and will never try to seize the kingship. Though more capable than any of his brothers, his mother was Gabrielle d’Estreés . . . and thus he cannot be more than a
légitimé
. Now
he
is content. But you?
No,
Louis concluded.
Never. You will never surrender the notion that you are more capable than my namesake—that the throne and crown rightly belong to you. This is about Richelieu—but it is more about
you
.
It has always been about you.
“That is most generous of you,” Louis said at last. “I am sure the Fates will treat you kindly.”
◊ ◊ ◊
Monsieur Gaston could barely contain his anger. He crumpled the sheet of paper in his hand and hurled it to the floor. The messenger flinched; but to his credit he stood his ground. He had ridden all the way from Paris by arrangement. Gaston had demanded that the Count of Soissons, his
créature
in Paris, send word of what he had learned by courier—in case anyone happened to be listening.
But the information Soissons had sent was no information at all.
“Questions,” he said. “
Questions.
They outnumber answers. Your master has been deficient. He would not permit this message to be . . . what is the word?
Broadcast
. Sent by radio. Yet it is without information.”
“I am sure he has told you whatever he knows—”
“He falls short,” Gaston interrupted. “What does he say? What does his message tell me? I am merely informed that Madame is still with child, and is still in seclusion. What
is
of consequence is that your master has still not deigned to tell me
where she is
. Where? Some palace, some convent, a roadside tavern, a fisherman’s shack on the coast of Gascony? I know she is not in the Louvre, and has not been since she became pregnant. But that is all I know. He caused you to ride all the way here to tell me that he has nothing to tell me.”
