Prospero snorted disdainfully. “Oh, come, come, Bartolomeo, act your age. Only the ignorant characterize things they don’t or can’t comprehend as witchcraft, and if there is one thing we all have abundant proof—he waved at the sumptuous furnishings and works of art—”that you are not, it is ignorant!
“Yes, di York was long ago haled up before an ecclesiastical court on a charge of witchcraft, but that charge was proved groundless, laid in pure jealousy by some of his fellow medical practitioners when he cured the father of the present King of England of some wasting illness after their methods had all proved inefficacious. He was a physician to the royal family prior to becoming a priest, you see.”
D’Este wrinkled his brow. “But I had heard that he was a goldsmith, at least a journeyman at the trade.”
“And more recently,” put in the normally silent Cardinal Murad Yakubian, “the English archbishop has been one of his monarch’s leading captains and the prime negotiator of the incipient alliance with King James of Scotland. He is patron of the great new manufactory of arms and cannon and unhallowed gunpowder in York, and, when he chances to be in that city, it is said that he often takes active and constructive roles in the innovations there produced for the king’s army and fleet. There are rumors about that he also is conducting experiments in the breeding of superior livestock on one of his estates. He has long been renowned as a most accomplished alchemist. He grinds better glass lenses than any Moor or Venetian, though in understandably small quantities for his own use or for a few gifts. He—”
“Suffice it to say/’ interrupted Prospero, “that this Harold di York is a multitalented man and should long since have been brought to Rome and elevated, afforded the due that such rare men as he deserve.
“Understand me, Bartolomeo, I have been laboring for nearly twenty years to get Harold di York brought to Rome and granted power and position with income and free time that his mind might be allowed to soar, as the Holy Church has done to her benefit with other geniuses in times past. But these foolish, hidebound, superstitious and vicious Moors and Spaniards have balked each time I broached the subject and effectively blocked my every move.
“Oh, they have always given an excuse of one kind or another,” Prospero added, seeing D’Este’s look of disbelief. “One that they trot out from time to time is his supposed impossible age. If you’d care to believe they don’t misread the few available records, he would indeed be impossibly ancient, over two hundred years old, give or take a few years.
“But you know how record-keeping goes. Even the best copyists make small errors, especially so if they happen to be translating or transliterating—say, from a Northern European version of ecclesiastical Latin into Roman ecclesiastical Latin rendered in Arabic characters, as too many records of the Holy See have been of late years.
“Anyhow, the records state that a”—he carefully emphasized the article—”Harold di York, Physicker, did save the life of Arthur, Prince of Wales—which is the title held by crown princes of England, for whatever reason. Now you know and I know the truth of this matter. This late-fifteenth-century Harold di York was possibly the father but more likely the grandfather of this present Archbishop Harold. What more normal and natural than that a son and/or grandson should follow the family trade or profession, especially if that position be practiced exclusively upon royalty and the higher echelons of nobility?
“I think that the thing that may truly have bewildered these overly pious Moorish ninnies is that there have been three Archbishops Harold di York, all long-lived and talented men, in the course of the last century and a half. But reflect you, is it unusual for monarchs to nurture men of promise, even to provide for their get if they too show promise?
“The sad excuse of the Moors and the Spaniards, that this current di York is a preternaturally old man, is based, I feel, on nothing more uncanny or unnatural than a family dynasty of brilliant, multitalented royal physicians and churchmen plus a few easily understandable errors on the parts of a few clerk-copyists.
“So, thanks to a sad compilation of years of church politics, superstitious fear mislabeled ‘piety,’ and a seldom-voiced but very real dislike of northern clergy, di York ended excommunicated and now all his vast compendium of abilities are turned against us at a most ticklish juncture in time. He is probably the most dangerous enemy that Rome has anywhere, just now.”
“Well, surely,” said D’Este, “there are clever assassins for the hire in England as in any other land? No, that might be a mistake; even if they did not take our hireling alive and wring the truth from him, everyone still would suspect Rome. He would become a martyr, a rallying point, overnight.”
“Precisely!” said Prospero. “Did 1 not earlier allude to your quick and astute mind, Bartolomeo? The very last thing we can afford to give this cabal of would-be seccessionists is a nice, ready-made martyr. No, we dare not strike directly at di York. Nor, in the wake of last year’s string of unmitigated military disasters, do 1 think that we’ll be able to raise any meaningful numbers of Crusaders against England, not for years to come, not in the form of either true Crusaders or paid mercenaries.”
“But is not the Grand Duke of Leon launching another invasion of England sometime next spring?” queried Bartolomeo. “Word of it was bandied about here in Palermo last autumn.”
Prospero frowned and shook his bald head. “Yet another of the hotheaded Spanish sort who are too full of supercilious pride to see when they’re beaten or admit to it if they could see. If the grand duke gets together enough ships and if the English fleet—which is becoming larger and more aggressive with every passing day, ’tis said—doesn’t catch him at sea, and if he finds and secures a spot where at he can land and marshal his troops, then … ah, then, brothers in faith, I entertain not the slightest doubt but that King Arthur will march his redoubtable army out and drub the grand duke as thoroughly as he did no less than four other armies last year. Much as I like the idea of Spaniards being killed or captured, which humiliates the arrogant swine almost as much as they deserve, it is to be remembered that the more Spanish gold that goes to England to pay off ransoms, the less there will be in Spain for Leon to send to Rome. So let us heartily pray that his grace of Ledn is unable to find enough ships for his venture into stupidity. And the last word that I had on the subject was that he was hard pressed in that regard, scraping the sides and bottom of the barrel, as it were.”
The second Swedish ship taken by Bass’s squadron bore cargo of nothing save naval stores—cordages, assortments of hardware and tackle, spars and other items of preworked timber, sheets of copper, tallow, resin, sacks of oats—and papers giving her destination as the Port of Gij6n. The vessel was put under a prize crew and sailed back directly to Sir Paul Bigod’s naval basin, while the squadron sailed on in search of more prey.
It was a bad week for the Scandinavians. The very next ship prized by the Revenge and her escorts proved to be out of Copenhagen. The vessel was solidly packed with barrels of salt pork, stockfish, cheese, and pigs of lead, with a deck cargo of roughed-out spars. This cargo seriously hampered her crew’s efforts to use the four demiculverins in her waist, and the ten culverins making up her main batteries were all thoroughly blocked off by barrels of salt pork.
A single deck-sweeping salvo from guns loaded with langrage-shot hurled by the upper batteries of the Revenge was enough to bring the ensign dipping down from its halyard at the stern of the merchanter.
The short, one-eyed, dirty-blond-haired man who surrendered his old, dull-bladed, ill-kept sword to Bass when haled before him was furious. In barely comprehensible English, he railed, “Well, murderous pig-dogs, you, when does Englaender schiffen to make wahr on Hanse? Or chust a dirty pirate is you den? Well, turd-mann, mein t’roat here iss.” He ripped aside a grimy-gray neckcloth to expose an expanse of dirt-creased skin under a bristly chin. “Do you to cut it now or later? Velcome vill be even your coward’s blade, for liefer 1 vould be dead than alife mitout mein schiffe.”
More than a little conscience-stricken, Bass simply turned and walked away, pretending not to understand the pidgin spoken by the Dane or the words shouted after him as he strode away. It was not until he returned to England that he heard of how the Danish captain had hanged himself in the hold wherein he and his crew had been cast while the prize crew manhandled the cranky, overloaded, unfamiliarly rigged flute back to friendly waters.