Mazarini remained silent, waiting for the pope to go on. Vitelleschi moved closer. The man they called the Black Pope had walked a few paces behind, listening intently. In a garden glorious with noonday sun, he created for himself a metaphorical shadow to remain in, behind the scenes. Mazarini tried to imagine what went on behind that blade-thin face, and failed utterly.
“If I might interject, Your Holiness?” Vitelleschi asked. When Urban nodded he went on: “There is a simple point about these United States that many, if not all, have missed outside these counsels, Monsignor. And that is the complete abandonment of cuius regio, eius religio.”
Mazarini murmured assent. That was, if anything, the most radical element of what the up-timers had brought. The principle that the ruler decided the religion of his people had been a given in the politics of Europe since shortly after Luther, and was yet another means for princes and prelates to justify their armed robberies under color of just war.
“This principle of freedom of religion, Monsignor,” Vitelleschi continued, “bids us reconsider our attitudes to the recatholicization of the Germanies. The Swede can no longer expel the Society, for we have freedom of our own religion there. The Swede can no longer mandate to his people that they shall not hear us, nor be converted. This much the Society shall do of its own initiative. We will win converts for Christ. His Holiness has had other possibilities drawn to his attention as well.”
“Indeed,” Urban said, “and I am grateful to my brother in Christ for his summation and for the most wise counsel he has offered me. For your own part, Monsignor Mazarini, would you regard this Padre Mazzare as trustworthy? Reliable? A worthy priest?”
“Ah, to what end, Your Holiness?”
Urban’s expression turned wintry, a sharp contrast to the sunlight. “To the end of all our service to God, Monsignor. I seek an assessment of the character of the man.”
“I beg forgiveness of Your Holiness. I thought to shape my answer to Your Holiness’ political needs.” Mazarini thought furiously. The pope could not possibly be neglecting his duties as monarch of the Church, or could he? Mazarini dismissed that thought from his mind. There was really nothing for it but to simply tell the truth as he saw it.
“Perhaps if I recount for Your Holiness all of my direct experiences of him? I think this will give you the same material on which I form my assessment of the man Mazzare. I think very highly of him, as it happens.”
“Then tell me all, Monsignor,” Urban said, smiling a little again. “Tell me all.”
Mazarini told the whole story, beginning from his first news of Grantville, brought in with the intelligence reports to Avignon. He had written to Grantville’s parish priest, seeking a way in to what looked like being the new politics of the Germanies. Why he had foreseen that, he did not know. It had just seemed so obvious at the time. He had sent the letter with Heinzerling, at the time his assistant and aide de camp, and the opening of communications in that way, coupled with Mazarini’s attempts to lever himself into a peacemaker’s role, had attracted the ire of Richelieu. Mazarini had had to cool his heels in Rome until the autumn of 1632, when he had traveled, quietly and without fuss, to Grantville to meet Father Mazzare.
He had not gone without foreknowledge. Forbidden to pass any message to Mazzare or anyone in Grantville, Mazarini had sent Heinzerling with no message at all, but required to report back. Vitelleschi nodded a quiet appreciation for a neat piece of casuistry as Mazarini recounted that. Mazarini had eventually gone to Grantville lacking anything better to do. He had seen Grantville at both its best and worst: hard-pressed and in fear of its life, fighting desperately for survival, and also triumphant, haggling the terms of a new ascendancy.
Just so had he seen Grantville’s parish priest. At once the harried and overworked small-town pastor, nervous over events which he did not control. And then, after the battle, concerned to see that the right thing was done by a woman who had died, by all accounts, the most obnoxious of his parishioners.