The choice had obviated his opponent’s greater skill with swordsmanship. Harry had had no intention of trying to match him. He’d simply managed to avoid the first lunge and grappled with his opponent, Bowie knife against main gauche. Thereafter, fighting with knives at close quarters, those qualities which Harry possessed in abundance—great athletic ability and an outlook sanguine enough to be the envy of any Mongol khan—had come to the fore. The end result had been thoroughly fatal and incredibly messy.
Now that he was in the presence of the cardinal, Mazarini suppressed his sigh. Hopefully, Harry Lefferts would be gone from Paris and on his way back to Grantville before the very wealthy and very belligerent Fasciotti brothers—all five of them—discovered that their sister had been dishonored and came to Paris from Rome to seek satisfaction. There would be no duels, dealing with the Fasciotti. Hiring assassins came as naturally to them as hiring servants. All the more so since the sister in question was not complaining about the episode herself. Awkward, that.
But Richelieu was finally speaking. Mazarini pushed aside thoughts of his rambunctious American companion. There were many dangers in the world, after all. Compared to Richelieu, Harry Lefferts was a minor problem.
“Monsignor,” said Richelieu, “You have visited Grantville, perhaps?”
“I have, Your Eminence.”
Mazarini responded politely, despite the fact that the question was moot. It did not do for one gentiluomo to admit to another that he had had him spied on—or, in his response, for the one spied upon to draw attention to the fact. Mazarini’s trip to Grantville had neither gone unnoticed nor unremarked. The resulting icy blast of Cardinal Richelieu’s displeasure had been directed straight at Cardinal Barberini, who had in his turn deposited the whole lot on Mazarini once he’d arrived in Rome. Richelieu had a long reach; his eyes were everywhere and there were few within Europe who could not at least be apprised of his opinions if not made to suffer for his displeasure. He had latterly come to have most of the resources of France at his disposal; in a sense, he was France.
“Perhaps,” Richelieu went on, “some things passed between the monsignor and—”
Mazarini interrupted him silently, staring with a carefully blank expression and placing his hand on his heart, before casting his eyes down. The gesture of one who, for ritual reasons, could not speak. If ritual had an advantage, it was the language of subtlety it allowed the cognoscenti to converse in.
Richelieu sighed. Ritual could also be a shield for those who chose to dissemble. He chose not to look upon the dissimulation. “Monsignor,” he said after a little time, “you are aware, perhaps, of the news of the future brought by the Americans?” Richelieu rose and took the two steps that carried him to the window. “I ask in a spirit of genuine enquiry; you need not vouchsafe how much you know or where you have it from.”
And such a freight of meaning in that! Mazarini found himself cold despite the heat, his palms sweating. He had never underestimated an opponent in his career to date, but he wondered whether it was possible to do anything else with the cardinal who ruled France.
For a wonder, his voice remained under control. “I am aware, yes.” He thanked God silently for the calm; it was his best weapon at the card table and in negotiations.
He had already heard enough to deduce what was coming next. More than a few men had emerged, shocked and grinning, from the Palais in the last few weeks. The cardinal was promoting men, young and unknown men, and it was—well, not the talk of all Paris, but certainly noticed.
Richelieu remained at the window, looking out over the garden he had torn down the adjoining buildings to create. He could surely see little, Mazarini reflected. Paris in the spring meant mist and soft, clinging rain as much as fresh air and balmy breezes. The sky was the gray of over-washed linen and the streets a mire, clinging and glutinous. Everywhere was the stink of wet wool.
Richelieu let out a long breath. Not quite—but almost—another sigh. He half-turned, and addressed Mazarini over his shoulder. “It is more difficult, if you will say nothing?”