“Well, I might hazard a guess as to what is on the agenda you do not have for this morning might be.”
“Venice, what else?” Mike said, with more than the merest hint of a groan in his voice. “As it has been these six weeks past. Viewing with alarm the possibility of any extension of the mission in the direction of Rome. Drawing to my attention that our enemies are all among the Catholic powers, our friends among the Protestant ones. Except for England and Denmark, of course, but Wilhelm claims that doesn’t count since Charles Stuart is a notorious papist sympathizer and Christian IV an equally notorious drunkard.”
Mike sighed again. “I am resolutely not using the phrase ‘religious bigot’ either here or in public. So far, he hasn’t used the words ‘Catholic Menace,’ either. So I guess we’re even—or, at least, still being reasonably civil.”
“He needs at least a goodly chunk of the Catholic vote if he hopes to win a nationwide election,” Nasi pointed out. Then, shook his head. “But I leave that to you.”
“Along with Wilhelm,” Mike said, gloomily.
Chapter 22
It was good for Michel Ducos that he was quiet and impassive. The comte d’Avaux could feel a rage boiling in the quiet depths of the man’s heart, a rage that would take no more than a word, a gesture, an expression out of place to make good on its threat that he would abandon the pretense of calm reason that he was maintaining. There was something not sane at the core of Ducos’ soul, the comte had long known. Of course, the same could be said of any heretic, he supposed; but of Ducos, more than most. He reminded d’Avaux of one of the watchdogs the comte owned on his estate back in France.
It was a dangerous beast, improperly handled. On the other hand, also the best watchdog on the estate—and d’Avaux knew himself for a superb handler, of either dogs or men.
Ducos had delivered the news-sheet without comment beyond a grave, “Seigneur le Comte should read this.”
So he had, and having gotten no more than a third of the way down the page he had put the piece of refuse down. Bad enough that this Buckley had outwitted a staff of professional spymasters to penetrate to their more secret counsels, although such was more or less to be expected. There was this much to take comfort in: the encyphered dispatches that only d’Avaux, Ducos and their cypher clerk had seen appeared not to have been relayed to the wretched American.
But to publish! That was the larger half of d’Avaux’s upset. There were customs in such matters, hallowed by time so as to be all but law. By his actions, Buckley had put the American delegation in flagrant mockery of that law. D’Avaux wondered, with unwonted grim humor, whether this meant that the Swede’s creatures wanted matters in Venice played out à l’outrance? They had certainly spared no pains to provoke such. For what purported to be a communiqué of news the thing had the brutal tone of an incendiary pamphlet.
The Americans had almost certainly acquired that habit in the Germanies. Or, rather, added it like a gloss onto the boorish customs they had brought with them. The Germanies sprouted presses like mushrooms, waxing in the fecal darkness of their Protestant benightedness. The product of those presses was no more wholesome than what they grew in.
But that brought the metaphor of mushrooms to an abrupt halt, since d’Avaux was partial to the delicacies. So, he forced himself back to the matter at hand.
To write, in what purported to be news, in the tone of a demagogue exhorting the mob, was—exactly what he might have done, or at least ordered done, had he thought of it first. The realization drained the unaccustomed rage away, unexpressed now save as mild annoyance.
“Ducos, how did he come by this?”
A brief smile was Ducos’ first answer. Then: “Monsieur Buckley fancies himself as a spy. An amateur, only.”
D’Avaux cocked an eyebrow.
Ducos nodded. “He fancies himself quite the master of espionage, seigneur. He speaks with servants.”
D’Avaux felt his own face twitch into a smile. It was, of course, impossible to keep many secrets from one’s servants. Ducos was as good an example as any, and better than most, but below Ducos’ exalted level as factotum, the footmen and valets could not help but overhear a great deal. The astute spymaster would cultivate such sorts and their gossip, and it was seldom needful to disburse more than nominal bribes to procure an essential appreciation of one’s opponent’s counsels and habits of thought. The trick was to sort the wheat from the chaff in the information thus gathered, the genuine intelligence from the idle talk of the lower orders. It did not do to be vexed by this, of course, since those same lower orders were constitutionally incapable of genuine, higher loyalty.