1635_ Cannon Law - Eric Flint [63]
Nasi took a moment to ensure that his face was fully under control. The barb was a true one. His last update to Mike Stearns had been on the whereabouts of the Jesuit astronomer-priest whom Mazzare had asked for as his senior scientific advisor when he had been appointed cardinal. The man didn't spend all of his time with his eyes on the stars, however. His travels around the various archbishops and secular nobility on the fringes of the USE were an itinerary that made interesting reading. Mazzare was, in his own quiet and understated way, doing some hard politicking of his own.
If nothing else, ensuring that all of those prelates and princes, weaned on the principle of cuius regio, eius religio, got regular updates on how well the Catholic church—as distinct from the Catholic powers—could do in an area where there was freedom of religion. Mazzare was meeting regularly with the upper levels of the German Jesuit hierarchy—Scheiner's influence again—to direct efforts to proselytise the Catholic religion. Nasi had been including that in his reports on the "good news" side of the balance sheet, not least because the Jesuits' efforts to get as many schools open as possible in as many places as possible were saving the USE a tidy sum in education spending. There were public order problems as well—there were plenty of places where riots against "popery" were easy to provoke, and would be, if Nasi was any judge of how Christians behaved, for many years to come.
Mazzare grinned disarmingly. "Fine, you've got me on that one. But there's a world of difference between smoothing the ruffled feathers of a lot of bishops who think they're about to be forced to turn Lutheran and knowing what Borja's playing at."
"So you think it is Borja, then?" Nasi asked. "I don't have any hard information on that myself. I have, shall we say, limits on how much information I can gather on the internal workings of the Catholic Church. Or any Christian institution, to be completely candid." It was a blind spot in Nasi's otherwise—false modesty aside—excellent espionage organization. Commercial and political rumor he could have for the asking; the correspondents he had already had before working for the USE had been collecting that kind of information for years for their own business. Mailing it to a new address represented no great change. Developing contacts within the religious institutions was going to take time and effort that Nasi simply had not been able to expend, thus far. Nasi was hoping for something to come of his contact with Mazzare on that account; an exchange of intelligence with someone who was developing his own contacts within the Catholic church from a position of near-supreme advantage would be invaluable, given how much stock Europeans had in their competing theologies.
Mazzare nodded. "I do think it's Borja. And you may be assured that my sources are of the best. What I get, I get a few weeks behind the times, but all the thinking as of the last report was that Borja was up to no good, and almost certainly behind the attempts to foment civil disorder. I guess you've had reports on that business already?"
Stearns said, "Yeah, we have. Sharon saw one incident right up close, as it happens. Ended up having to help the wounded."
Mazzare frowned. "She wasn't hurt? Everyone at the embassy is fine? Any word on Frank and Giovanna?"
"All unharmed as at my last report, Your Eminence," Nasi said hastily. "That was last night, from Ms. Nichols."
"Oh, good." Mazzare's relief was palpable. "All too many of the people I have to deal with either don't know that their little games get people killed, or simply don't care. You will, of course, remind Sharon from me, and ask her to tell Frank from me as well, to be careful? From what I gather Borja's trying to revive an old family tradition."
"He wants to be pope?" Stearns asked.
"What cardinal doesn't?" Mazzare shot back, smiling. "Seriously, though, I was