Mazzare detected the authentic whiff of lawyering. A sort of brimstone reek. He fumed to himself, keeping his face straight the while.
For all of Nasi’s smooth legalese, there was still a real problem involved. Since the Reformation, southern Thuringia’s Catholic Church had ceased to exist—there were no archdeaconries, no dioceses, no Catholic ecclesiastical administration of any kind. The impact of the Thirty Years’ War, especially since Gustav Adolf’s decisive victory at Breitenfeld two years earlier, had spread the disorganization into the parts of Franconia that made up the remainder of the territory that Grantville was managing for the Swedish king. The bishops of Wuerzburg and Bamberg were in exile at the Habsburg court, as was the prince-abbot of Fulda. The archbishop of Mainz had fled in the other direction, to Cologne, also outside of the CPE, which removed that link in the religious chain of command.
The normal clear hierarchies simply didn’t exist any longer in Thuringia and Franconia. For all practical purposes, there was nobody between Father Larry Mazzare and . . . well, the pope himself. Although Mazzare always insisted that he was simply a parish priest, in fact he’d increasingly been playing the informal role of “the bishop of Thuringia and Franconia.”
That was part of the reason, of course, that the Jesuits were so eager to come to Thuringia and set up shop. Protestants in the area tended to view their activities as part of a fiendish Jesuitical plot. But Mazzare knew that most of the explanation was simply that the Jesuits were delighted not to face the usual hassles with a diocesan bishop.
So. It would have to be a curate hired by Mazzare himself while he was off—he stamped down hard on that thought. Granted, it was flattering that they thought he was up to . . .
No. Blast it, I’m just a parish priest!
“I can’t,” he said, trying to be as firm about it as he could. Listening to himself, he thought he was just doing a good job of sounding obdurate.
“Sure you can,” replied Mike, relaxed. “In fact, you’re perfect for the job.”
“I’m not related to you,” Mazzare retorted. “That was why you had to send Rita and Rebecca, wasn’t it? Put your own good name on the line, and all that?”
“Priests do the same job, you know. Look at what Father Joseph does for Richelieu, or the emperor’s confessor, what’s his name—”
“I’m not your confessor. You’re not even Catholic, Mike.” Mazzare had an inkling of where this particular line was going, and didn’t much like it.
“I’m not really much of anything, religion-wise,” Mike said, raising his hands. Rough hands, Mazzare noted. No strangers to hard work. Hard, unsentimental work. “It’s something I rather tend to gloss over, of course, when it comes up. Especially these days, when everyone and his dog in Europe wants to know.”
“So you’re sending me somewhere Catholic, then? Is that how it is, Mike?” Mazzare realized he sounded peevish, which only made him more peevish. “You want to dissemble yourself as a Catholic?”
Mike never even blinked. “I swear, Father, that thought hadn’t occurred to me.”
He looked as sincere as Shirley Temple. Mazzare didn’t believe it for an instant. Whatever else he was, Mike Stearns was the slickest politician Mazzare knew.
“It had occured to me,” said Francisco Nasi, suddenly blunt and pugnacious in his manner; from the courtier to the bazaar-haggler in barely a heartbeat. “Father Mazzare, I will not try to pour sugar on this. A mission to Venice, which is indeed Catholic, is vital to our interests—and possibly even our survival. Your presence as leader of that mission represents the best hope we may have of the success of that mission. And, yes, the fact that you are a Catholic priest is part of what fits you so well for the task. For all that nearly everything in Venice turns on money and trade, Father, they need to see a face of Grantville they can trust. Even had we all our pool of potential ambassadors present in Grantville to choose from, most are women, or Jewish.”
“Or Jewish women,” Mike added, with a brief flash of a grin.