1635_ Cannon Law - Eric Flint [185]
"Your Holiness does us much honor," Ruy said, and knelt. Tom wasn't sure of protocol for a non-Catholic visiting a pope, so he followed what Ruy was doing.
"A rescue party of two?" the pope asked, when they had regained their feet. "I have heard much of the marvelous machines possessed by the Americans. Can it be that some such contrivance is to be employed? An airplane, perhaps?" There seemed to be genuine yearning in his voice at that last.
"Your Holiness," Ruy said, "no great wonders, simply myself and some few brave companions. We bring an offer of the assistance of the United States of Europe, and asylum in that nation if Your Holiness so desires."
"Alas, I cannot abandon—"
"Your Holiness," Tom said, "that's so much crap. It's you they want to kill."
The pope's old-fashioned look in reply had a good three hundred years' head start on any such look Tom had ever had before. "Did they desire only that, Signor Simpson, they would have accepted my offer to give myself into their hands. As it is, all offers of parley have been rejected."
"That figures," Tom said. "They can't just shoot you after taking you prisoner; that makes you a martyr. Have you heard what's happening to cardinals who support you?"
The pope inclined his head and cocked an eyebrow in silent inquiry.
"They are being assassinated," Ruy said. "We have word of nearly a dozen dead so far, from the father-general, and your own nephew saw Cardinal Bischi done to death in the street only this morning. It is the father-general's estimation that any cardinal who might not cooperate with Borja in the next conclave is being killed, if there is any chance he might be in Rome in time for the conclave. He has no conclusive information in relation to the cardinals elsewhere in Italy, but—" Ruy's silence, and small, discarding gesture with his left hand, was as suggestive as a whole litany of dead priests.
"We suspected . . ." the pope said. His face had gone from drawn and tired and harassed-looking to masklike. Almost as if the undertakers had been at work. Serene, even.
"Now the Holy Father knows." Ruy's tone was flat. "I have a message from Cardinal Antonio Barberini the Younger by way of authentication, if Your Holiness' advisers are in any doubt."
Tom caught the parsing. One look at the face of His Holiness Urban VIII would reassure anyone that he doubted not a single word, and would have believed if it had come from Satan himself.
Some of the papal aides began to get it. "He means to make himself pope," one of them murmured, and there were several gasps and not a few angry mutters.
Urban was shaking his head slowly. "Then I must ask myself whether, in these most difficult of times, Holy Mother Church can survive an antipope." He turned on its aides. "Can it? Advise me."
A lot of blank looks was the reply. A lot of blank, worried looks.
"Your Holiness," Tom said, "if I understood Father-General Vitelleschi correctly, there is going to be an antipope come what may. I don't know the law of the church, but assassinating your predecessor, even if it's covered up as confusion of the battle, has to make an election invalid, doesn't it?"
"Debatable, my son," the pope said. "There is precedent." His mouth twisted into a wry grin. "Not all of what the Protestants say about previous holders of my office is entirely slanderous."
"Your Holiness, would you have the likes of Borja as the true pope?" Ruy asked, and there was venom in his voice as he said the name. That figured. Ruy had seen more of what Borja had ordered done in Rome today than anyone else here, if Tom's guess was right. "If he holds the throne of Saint Peter, he can do so only as antipope while you yet live."
For long moments, no one spoke over the sound of the cannon roaring and the hubbub of the defenders about their work. "I must think about this," the pope said, at length. "And I must pray for guidance. There remain yet some hours—"
There came a