1635 The Papal Stakes (43 page)

Wadding lifted his chin by the smallest of margins. “But there is this difference, Your Holiness: Christ could not err. His was a crisis of the heart, not of holiness, not of grace.”

“That is profoundly true—and so I am glad that you are with me to offer counsel. For you must now each argue for one of the two forking paths that lie before us.”

“You mean, toward Vatican Two, or away,” murmured Wadding, so distracted that he forgot to add the Pontiff’s honorific.

“Yes. And let us take another lesson from our Savior’s terrible night of trial, for Christ’s behavior always stands as a model for our own. He asked for the bitter cup to pass, if it might. This shows us, beyond any argument, that despite the horrors approaching, Our Savior’s head was clear. He knew what lay before Him, if He chose to stay in that garden. He knew the prudent, mundane choice, but demonstrated His grace in rejecting it in favor of the wise—the divine—choice.

“So, let us see the same distinction in our own quandary as we approach this fork in our own road. And let us do so by setting aside, just for one moment, our constant mandate that we must always, to the best of our frail abilities, be agents of divine grace. Let us instead, simply reason as practical men as we confront this question: Is there any doubt about the wisest alliance for us to make?”

All of them shook their heads in the negative. Even Wadding.

“Just so. We are certain of the political prudence of allying with the USE and the forces of change exemplified in that land, as well as in the Netherlands and, increasingly, even Austria. We are no less sure of this than Christ knew that the most prudent act was to flee the garden of Gethsemane.

“But, also like him, we have a crisis of the heart as well. However, whereas our Savior’s grace is perfect, ours is terribly imperfect. So, flawed as we are in matters of grace, we can only discern the most prudent mundane option with certainty. But what if terrestrial prudence is not, in this case, aligned with what is right and holy? What if, to walk in grace, we must walk in perilous ways, as did Christ that night, and the martyrs thereafter? Is it right—is it God’s will—that we should place the safe-keeping of Peter’s Church in the hands of those who many of us still call heretics, but who sincerely deem themselves Reformed?”

“We must not.” Wadding’s voice shook with emotion.

“I am not so certain of
either
path at this particular fork in the road, Father Wadding. But I am sure of this: if, at the end of our deliberations, we retain any doubt that the prudent choice is also the
right
choice, the
holy
choice, then we must construe that doubt to be our Heavenly father whispering the word ‘caution’ into our ears.”

Mazzare nodded, worried but hearing many layers in Urban’s musings. “His Holiness has the wisdom of the early Church fathers. But I must ask this question, too: where does the Prince of the Church go if not to a haven made safe by powers which now espouse toleration? Which, indeed, only possess those powers of protection because of the unity made possible by that toleration?”

‘‘An excellent question, my son. But again, that is merely a matter of prudence. And as the unworthy inheritor of Peter’s See, I am bound to put questions of grace before prudence, when and if they are separate concerns. As they most certainly are in this case.”

They turned a corner in the winding lane, the wooded mountains grown so steep and so close that it was hard to imagine why the pines did not tumble down upon them. And at that road’s end, there was a small country villa, boasting a modest enclosed garden and humble, scattered vineyards.

“See,” said Urban, turning and pointing at the rustic building with a smile, “Gethsemane awaits us.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Harry Lefferts leaned away from the Remington 700’s scope and sighed, “I love it when a plan comes together.” His two
lefferti
assistants—hiding behind the low wall of the makeshift belvedere that was perched atop the one three-story building that bordered the Jewish Ghetto—nodded, fierce grins on their faces. Whether or not they understood the full details of the plan was really beside the point; they were ardent groupies and were pumped up, thrilled to be chosen as tactical runners for their idol.

One of them was Giovanna Marcoli’s brother Fabrizio. Just beyond them, a gangly youth was scanning a tight cluster of rooftops about one-hundred-twenty yards away. “What are you seeing, Benito?”

“Little” Ben, whose growth rate put kudzu to shame, shrugged his narrow, stripling shoulders. “The usual,” he answered, moving the binoculars up higher, so they rested well above the still-healing gash on his cheek.

“Any movement on the roof?”

“None. Never is.”

“Good. Keep an eye on it.”

“Don’t I always?” Benito had never been awed by Harry.

Which only increased Harry’s fondness for Benito. The kid was a character, a real original, but, because he was only fourteen, others hadn’t noticed that just yet. It was a situation that Harry himself had experienced in adolescence and could recall with great clarity. He swung the Remington’s scope down to the Palazzo Giove’s main entrance and smiled to see the growing crowd of protesters, brandishing handles of every kind. The handles had been harvested from discarded tools, old doors, and shattered pots. The crowd was waving them in time to a chant that, at this range, Harry could not make out. But knowing Juliet, Harry was sure that it was saucy, inspired, and cutting.

He smiled to see her—prominent at the center of the mob—shaking her own pitcher handle at the tall, sealed doors, evidently lost in her role. But she was the consummate performer, able to give herself over fully to her persona of the moment, and yet maintain some part of her mind at a distance, observing, watching, measuring both the effect upon the audience, and the evolving situation around her.

She’d set the current events in motion six hours ago. In the blistering heat of the late mid-day sun, Juliet had waited patiently in the shadows with her water jug, as she had for three days. Three uneventful days when the palazzos of the
insula
Mattei had not drawn water, at least not from this fountain, which was located just across the street from the Palazzo Giacomo, and within twenty yards of where Frank and Giovanna were held captive.

But on this day, at last, two women had emerged from the tall doors of the main palazzo and moved north to the fountain, under the constant and proximal guard of two Spaniards.

Just as the two women started filling their yoke-linked buckets, Juliet had burst excitedly from her hiding place, quickly summoning other women to her with a tale of woe. Juliet had considered and discarded a number of tear-jerking narrative variants: she desperately needed water to soothe a child who had just burned herself at the hearth; to help a young cousin going into labor; to cleanse the wound of a young brother convalescing from wounds suffered during the Spanish attack. But with the increase in heat, the multiplication of mosquitoes, and the proximity of the river and the Ghetto, she had selected a story sure to generate maximum sympathy by playing on the fears of everyone else in the neighborhood: she needed water to combat the Roman fever of her elderly father.

Juliet had chosen her psyops story well; half a dozen other women were close behind her by the time she reached the fountain. Where she was waved off by the Spaniards. Hands on hips, red in the face, she expostulated, pleaded, screamed, gesticulated. The Spaniards ignored her. Indignant, but wary behind her apparent excess of passion, she defied them and stuck her jug into the fountain. In doing so, she came quite close to the
insula
Mattei’s designated water-bearers, who were, of course, prohibited all contact with the outside world.

The closest Spaniard pushed her back, just missing her sizable bosom in so doing. But that didn’t stop Juliet from claiming a sexual violation of her person, in addition to decrying the callous barbarity of the Spanish invaders. And, determined creature that she was, she surged her bulk back to the fountain, determined to fill her jug with water.

The other Spaniard looked lazily at her for a moment: Harry, watching through binoculars, had held his breath. He knew that look: annoyance coupled with utter disregard for human life. Anything could happen. The Spaniard pulled his sword—a short, straight blade not too different from a basket-hilted gladius—and swung it.

Juliet, mouth open, had frozen in surprise, fear, caution—Harry couldn’t tell which—and watched as the flat of the blade smashed her jug to pieces. Leaving her holding the handle.

That was when Harry witnessed Juliet’s genius at work, the moment of inspiration writ large across her broad face as she stared down at the fragment of jug which she was still grasping. With a shriek like a wounded Fury, she thrust the handle aloft, and began denouncing the Spanish brutes who were condemning her father to death because they would not share a fountain, not even for the five seconds it took to fill the jug they had destroyed. Thereby further ensuring the death of her father, because how could she now carry enough water?

What followed was a particularly Roman scene: despite the rapid propagation and intensification of her lament for a father dying due to the inhuman cruelty of the Spaniards, not one person interrupted Juliet’s agonized tirade to determine the location of the stricken parent, or departed to find other containers for use as soon as the Spanish withdrew. Instead, the emotions and outrage swelled along with the crowd, burgeoning out of all proportion to the offense.

But that was Juliet’s genius, to have understood exactly what kind of offense would have enough common resonance with the downtrodden masses to whip them up into the near-rebellious frenzy she had generated by three o’clock. At which point, the crowd had been ready to march on the Palazzo Mattei. But Juliet had redirected that fury, and marshaled what were now very much her forces, crafting a far more organized—and usefully timed—riot in front of the haughty gates of Palazzo Giove Mattei.

Which was now under way. The motif of the broken handle had, as Juliet had known it would, struck a chord with the less-affluent workers who were predominant in the neighborhoods near the Tiber. Now, as dusk was approaching, the anger of the mob was building, the chants becoming more fierce.

Yes
, Harry thought,
I certainly do love it when a plan comes together
. He looked down the scope again; there’d be ample light for at least another twenty minutes, by which time they’d be done with the job and heading back to the boats. He played the scope across the crowd; roofs occasionally obstructed his view, particularly of anything that might be situated in the immediate lee of any given building. But, thanks to the piazza surrounding the fountain, the arched doorway into the target building, the Palazzo Giacomo Mattei, was in clear view. And over that arch, he could see into the courtyard beyond.

There was a dim light in the windows of Frank’s rooms. The two-tiered loggia just beyond them, at the rear of the courtyard, was dark. A good sign: probably no guards there, as usual.

Harry cheated the scope up to the rooftop belvedere of the Palazzo Giove: one guy, staring over the lip down at the crowd in the street below. Nothing to worry about, but Harry would take him out first: an easy shot at only one hundred twenty-five yards.

He roved the scope across the interlocked roofs of the three palazzos of the squarish
insula
, checking for traps as he went. First the Giove, which dominated the southern and eastern halves of the compound; then the Giacomo on the west; and finally the Paganica on the northwest corner. Harry saw nothing new and no movement. As usual.

Satisfied, Harry turned to one of the
lefferti
. “Now, give the signal.”

The young fellow nodded and leaned out the rear of their own crude belvedere; he uncovered a bull’s eye lantern briefly. He resealed it, waited two seconds, uncovered it again. Repeated the process a third time and waited.

In the house across the street and just beyond the walls of the Ghetto, a light came on in the second story window closest to the now-unguarded gate known as the Porto Giuda.

Sherrilyn Maddox stayed well within the jagged hole in the roof of the gutted church that overlooked the Palazzo Paganica. She saw a light appear in the second story window of the Ghetto-hugging house that she had been watching for the last fifteen minutes. She turned to face the dark behind her. “We’re on,” she hissed at the rest of the Wrecking Crew, whom she could barely make out. “Push those ladders over the street and get them snug on the roof of the Palazzo Paganica. Felix, Paul, you’re the lightest, so you go over first and secure them in place. Then Gerd, you start on your way; you have a lot of roofs to scramble across.”

“Yes, but they are flat, so they are easy.”

Sherrilyn smiled. “If you say so. Let’s move.”

Owen Roe O’Neill tapped the earl of Tyrone on his thick, sturdy shoulder and pointed to the yellow glow in the signal window. “First light,” he muttered.

John nodded, and turned to his assault team: all the Wild Geese and a half dozen of the oldest
lefferti.
They had spent most of the day in this street-accessed storeroom, located just north of the fountain where Juliet had begun the Broken Handle Riot. “Weapons ready, lads. And stand to stretch your legs. Starting in five minutes, we’ll be running and fighting without rest until we’ve left Rome behind us.”

The knock on the door was not the dinner Frank had been expecting; it was Don Vincente Jose-Maria de Castro y Papas. In armor.

“Signor Stone.” His voice was very different from when they went on their now habitual garden walks. “It truly pains me to disturb you and your radiant wife at this late hour, but I am afraid I must intrude.”

“Vincente, what is—?”

Giovanna must have heard something he had missed. “Frank, my love, do not ask questions; let him in. And come here, to me.”

Frank looked at Don Vincente, who would not look him in the eye. Standing aside, Frank asked, “What’s wrong? Is—?”