“A true shepherd, then?” Urban remarked, when Mazarini came to a halt in his tale. There was an intrigued expression on the pope’s face, an expression that spoke of a renewal of interest.
“Yes, Your Holiness,” said Mazarini, suddenly deflating. He realized that as they had walked he had grown animated, had poured much of his own agitation over the business of Grantville into his words.
“Perhaps indecisive,” said Vitelleschi, from where he walked behind Mazarini and the Pope.
Mazarini realized that even in his customary terseness, Vitelleschi was saying more than the usually garrulous Barberini, and it was all Mazarini could do not to grin when he realized that Cardinal Antonio Barberini the Younger was somewhat overawed by his uncle’s presence, and was being seen and not heard, like a good boy.
“How say you, Monsignor?” asked Urban, after mulling this over for a moment. “Is the priest from the future indecisive?”
“Any appearance to that effect,” Mazarini said, realizing that he had at last relaxed in the presence of these two great men and recovered his facility for smoothness, “derives, if I may make so bold with the father-general, from Padre Mazzare’s habit of taking as much time as he can to think before acting. I have seen him, in the thick of difficulty and danger, act with decision and dispatch. If the father-general and Your Holiness will recall, he passed only a few hours in thought—perhaps as little as an hour, although I cannot say when the thought first came in to his mind—before deciding to send those first books to Your Holiness through my humble self. I think if there is pressure of time, or great passion working on the man, he will act decisively.”
A few more paces, now in silence.
“If Your Holiness . . .” Mazarini trailed off, letting the silence be his request for permission.
The pope nodded his consent.
“If Your Holiness will vouchsafe his intent for Padre Mazzare, perhaps I might make my humble opinion better tailored to the fit of Your Holiness’ ideas?”
“Will he make a worthy advocate before an Inquisition?” The question was put with disarming simplicity.
“Your Holiness?” Again, the pope had caught him off guard.
“I am minded to direct that he plead Galileo’s case. After all, if it can be proven that Nature gives the lie to our interpretation of Scripture, we must change our interpretation. There is Scripture, Nature, and the theology of men. The creation of men cannot be allowed to gainsay the creation of God, after all, and such revisions to the Church’s teaching have happened before and will doubtless happen again. And if this new learning that Grantville brings will spare the Church the embarrassment of causing to be abjured what later is proven true, then—” Urban waved a hand, a hand that sketched all manner of pleasing possibilities in the air.
Barberini spoke for the first time. “Scheiner and Grassi may yet complain.”
Vitelleschi answered him. “Scheiner and Grassi are priests of the Society. They will obey.” In such tones a man might declare that the sun would rise in the east.
Mazarini had thought about Mazzare as the others spoke, and remembered hearing the American priest speak at Irene Flannery’s funeral. A final homily for a woman who had hated everyone, and yet he had spoke eloquently and perfectly for the time.
“Your Holiness,” he said, “It is a duty which I believe that Padre Mazzare will discharge well, given time to prepare.”
“That he shall have. It will be some time before Galileo stands his formal trial. Time enough for Father Mazzare to come to Rome.”
“By your leave, then, Your Holiness,” Mazarini said, “I shall depart as soon as may be for Venice. Padre Mazzare is there now, and I can give him warning of your summons.”
“Go with God’s blessing, Monsignor.”
Chapter 27
Cardinal Antonio Barberini watched Mazarini’s retreating back for a while. The man had made his excuses—travel to organize, packing to supervise—and set off as if his boots were afire. It was a mark of the man that under the soutane were a cavalier’s breeches and boots, a holdover from his younger days. Days, Barberini reflected with a wry smile, when Mazarini had been his own age. Antonio was still shy of his twenty-sixth birthday, and owed his rapid rise in the church entirely to family influence.