“Ah, Antonio,” Urban said, “even if there is no truth in the picture that the American priest paints for us of that future, there is a terrible plausibility and such a great weight of learning. In itself, this speaks to its truth, does it not? How well might one man fabricate such a thing, with all its inconsistencies and blank spots? A liar would try harder to dress up the rough parts, plaster over the cracks.”
“You believe the Americans’ accounts of future history?”
“With caution,” Vitelleschi murmured.
Urban nodded. “In some regards they may be being selective with the information they release, the father-general tells us. It is what he would do in their place, for in the father-general’s eyes the only word that should be passed freely is the Gospel, is that not so, Muzio?”
Vitelleschi nodded.
“But there have been too many unplanned releases, I think. The book that caused such trouble in England, for example, and the Congden Library, which may be under control in Grantville now—” Urban paused to let Vitelleschi speak.
“The change in the information coming out of Congden argues for it. It is no longer the original printed books, but manuscript copy. Who knows what is added by the copyist?”
Urban chuckled. “Muzio, I take counsel of your caution. But it remains”—he grew serious again—”that I have either an opportunity or a sure route to disaster and it lies in a Protestant nation.”
“You seek to ally the Church with the Swede?” It was the only Protestant nation Urban could mean, and Barberini could hardly refrain from blurting out his amazement.
“Ah, there is the beauty of it, Nephew,” said Urban. “There is no establishment of religion in the United States of Europe. I cannot be their ally, can I? If nothing else, meeting the priest whom their prime minister trusts enough to appoint as an ambassador will give me some clue, some hint about how to harness their strength to the betterment of the Church.”
“And what is that?” Barberini asked.
“I do not know, Antonio,” said Urban, and turned away to look at his new-growing garden. “I do not know.”
The pope spent some time studying a moving insect. “I only know that I had never imagined it would come to this, in the long decades of my life. That, in my old age, God would place me before that same choice he gave Becket. What thoughts move through His unknowable mind, that He would choose two such worldly men for such a test?”
When he had been silent for a quarter hour or more, both Barberini and Vitelleschi left, in different directions.
Chapter 28
Ducos coughed discreetly at the door. D’Avaux nodded, once, permitting the man entry. At least Ducos remembered that Seigneur le Comte deserved a modicum of dignity and took pains to respect it. D’Avaux, feeling guilt at indulging a passion so strong as hatred, darted his glance across the desk to the pile of papers on the corner. All of the reports on Buckley, and by him. He forced calm upon his troubled soul. To grow irrational through the righteous anger of wounded honor would simply not do.
“Seigneur le Comte,” Ducos said, after the silence had grown uncomfortable, and bowed.
D’Avaux collected himself. Yes, he had grown distracted and omitted the proper protocol. Permissible between familiars, but with even so exalted a servant as Ducos—not unpardonable, but nevertheless noblesse oblige required otherwise. “Ducos, if it please you, do you have something to report?”
“Several matters, master,” Ducos said. His face hardly moved as he spoke, but there seemed to be a faint smile in every syllable his voice spoke. The smile of a cat sauntering away from a mousehole licking his chops. D’Avaux pulled his desk lamp closer—the hour was late, midnight close at hand—and turned to face his man. A crook of the eyebrow invited him to proceed.
“As to the American Buckley, I have arranged matters. Seigneur le Comte’s proposal that the Turks be involved or implicated proved impractical, and I have therefore suborned a member of the Holy Office’s retinue to the deed.”
D’Avaux felt a thrill of shock. “Ducos, I gave orders for no such . . .” He trailed off. “No,” he said when he had collected himself again, “first give me the remainder of your report.”