1635_ Cannon Law - Eric Flint [90]
"True. It does not stop my family's enemies upbraiding us for it." His face twisted up in a sour expression for a moment. "Horseflies, they call us. Still, Cardinal Mazzare tells me that one day all this will edify the multitudes." He waved a hand around.
"He told me that, as well," Sharon agreed. "He said he found it strange to be staying here in what he last came to as a museum." She paused a moment to take in the profusion. The décor was remarkable in every detail, the themes varying from room to room in wild profusion without ever clashing, and almost completely hidden with every square inch covered in art and sculpture. You could, she realized, lose days in here. It was a wonder that this Barberini, whose enthusiasm seeped out of every pore, ever left the place.
As it was, he was ranging his eyes over the collection. "Mazzare," he said, after a moment, "is a man who is destined either for great things or to be remembered by history as the worst disaster ever to befall the Church."
"How so?" Sharon asked. "The disaster part, that is."
"It is . . . hard to explain," Barberini said, after another long stare at the paintings. "I do not, you understand, pretend to understand all of the politics. Or the theology. Or how the two go together."
Sharon looked around, and realized that, for the first time since they had started on this little tour, they were alone. Barberini had stopped in a spot where, with only a little effort, easily covered as contemplation of the surrounding artwork, he could see for quite some distance into the adjoining rooms whose doors had been thrown open. They would not be easily overheard by anyone. After Barberini's pause had grown uncomfortably long, she said, "I don't really understand all of it myself. Really, I just wanted to be a nurse. It wasn't my fault I ended up a politician. As for theology, well, I went to church on Sundays and that was it." She refrained from mentioning which church, since the African Methodist Episcopal church didn't even exist in this time and place. Not that Barberini wouldn't have had full reports on her accompanying Ruy to mass on Sunday.
"There are those that do, Dottoressa. And they have taken decisions I do not pretend to understand, and cannot see the wisdom of. There are times when I wonder whether we would not be better simply to denounce everything from your time as witchcraft as some of the older generation want to." He sounded weary. "It would spare us all so many complications. After all, everyone understood the world before the Ring of Fire came, even though some of us affected a certain skepticism. Cynicism, even. Now? My esteemed uncle seems to have an idea fixed in his mind that God himself is speaking to him in this matter but is not yet convinced he knows what he is being told."
Sharon didn't know what to say to that. And so the uncomfortable pause stretched even longer than the one before it. She said nothing, and just waited. What was up with the man? Either he thought she was going to be offended or he wasn't happy with what he'd been ordered to say to her.
She hoped—no, she wasn't sure what she hoped. She could take offense in stride, she figured. It wasn't like most of what she saw around here wasn't offensive in some way or other, and after a while she'd stopped noticing, most of the time. If he was unhappy about what he had to say, what was the worst of it? Business as usual, the pope carefully pretending he didn't have one more ambassador in his city, one who wasn't getting invited to his court. Something that, between any other nations not actually at war, would be an insult but which the USE was being very forbearing about since they'd had the bare minimum recognition that protocol required. So either way there was no need to worry.
Barberini was making it look like there was, though.