1634- the Galileo Affair

by Eric Flint

  "It does furnish me with a good excuse, though, Antonio." His Holiness Urban VIII had developed a twinkle that was literally as well as figuratively avuncular.

  Barberini seethed inside. These two had concocted something between them, decided on something, and were now mocking him! Or as much mockery as the constitutionally humorless Vitelleschi was capable. "Does the pope require an excuse in matters of faith?" he asked, knowing they probably had an answer already.

  "Certainly," Urban said. "If the pope was not visibly commanded by God to reverse himself, what price infallibility?"

  "Which is no more than a tradition!" Barberini snapped, regretting it immediately. "Your Holiness, I most humbly apologize for my tone."

  "And so you should," Urban said. "But as to infallibility being a tradition, yes, it is. And a most valuable tradition it is, for without it there is no last authority on the Church's teaching and thus no certainty."

  "And so we need an excuse to proceed from what is certainly wrong to what is probably right?" Barberini smiled to show he jested.

  "Indeed."

  "And there is more," Vitelleschi said. "We will have some chance to see the American priest in a sore trial of his wit and learning. A man may lie well and convincingly at his leisure. Under pressure even the most glib will err."

  Understanding dawned on Barberini then. "The Galileo affair is not the real trial?"

  "Not the real trial," Vitelleschi said.

  "Then what is? Your Holiness?"

  "That I do not know. I pray for guidance, Antonio. Your elder brother believes there is much to be gained by proceeding down this path, word-for-word and as fast as possible. He is more of an enthusiast than you for the new learning in every sphere of life. San Onofrio, my brother and your uncle, believes that we should place this material from Grantville in some musty corner of his library at the Lateran. Then, admit of its existence to only a few of our more trusted theologians and let the ideas out slowly and with great caution, if at all, and beginning only when we have seen the new politics established for perhaps a century, so as to be certain this has in some sense God's blessing upon it."

  Barberini could barely keep himself from laughing aloud at that last. "He thinks that God has ordained a trial by combat in the Germanies?"

  "Not really." Urban's smile was a little wistful. "He and I are less than an hour apart in age, but very different in some ways. He has always been the more studious of us, and I think he fears these things for which there is not ancient authority. May God bless him, he has not been well of late, and some of the things he has to say on these subjects are not entirely lucid."

  "He grows unwell?" Barberini crossed himself, offered a silent prayer for his other uncle.

  "Not so bad that he cannot get about. He grows . . . testy." Urban sighed. "I would that I could grow so testy as well. I prayed God to spare me this, such turmoil. And yet I see no way out of engaging with this new learning. This—basta!"

  Both Barberini and Vitelleschi moved closer to the pope, whose face was now drawn and lined. "Are you unwell, uncle?" Barberini asked.

  Vitelleschi's mask had cracked, for a moment, and was then back in place. "Shall I have a physician attend Your Holiness?"

  "No, no," Urban said. "I am well enough, in body. It is in the spirit I ache, in the spirit. At once an opportunity and a challenge. I am reminded of that English saint, Thomas à Becket."

  Neither of the other two priests spoke. Barberini, for his own part, could not place the Saint Thomas that his uncle was referring to.

  Urban went on. "He was commanded by his king to overlook some matter of the church's interest, and refused. I misdoubt that that king's penitence after the fact made the swords of his knights hurt any the less."

  "I can assure Your Holiness that there is no sign of any current plot—" Vitelleschi began, almost hotly. Whatever the efficiencies of the Holy Office in Rome, the Society of Jesus had its own fearsomely effective apparatus of informers and spies, and had indeed been first on the trail of the last, albeit comical, plot to murder the pope.

  Urban waved him aside. "No, no, I do not doubt you or your eyes, Muzio. I know for a fact that there will be such a plot, however."

  "Your Holiness has decided—?" Vitelleschi's voice had a note of doubt in it.

  "Not in any formal sense, no." The pope's face had turned brooding. "But in my heart I see that there is a way to step ahead of the errors and missteps of the next centuries. I pray every hour for the courage to take that way. For, more importantly, the wisdom to see the path that leads on that way."

  "Ah," said Vitelleschi, and fell silent.

  "I do not understand," said Barberini after a moment trying to follow. "What way?"

  Urban smiled. "My dear, dearly beloved nephew, have you read those papers that the American priest sent?"

  "Some of them, yes, but . . ."

  "But you are no theologian, or at least no more than you need to be a priest on those occasions when you discharge that small part of your office?"

  Barberini felt himself blush. Holiness and piety were no great part of his character and in the august presence of his uncle there was no way to hide that fact. He said nothing.

  "Ah, Antonio," Urban said, "even if there is no truth in the picture that the American priest paints for us of that future, there is a terrible plausibility and such a great weight of learning. In itself, this speaks to its truth, does it not? How well might one man fabricate such a thing, with all its inconsistencies and blank spots? A liar would try harder to dress up the rough parts, plaster over the cracks."

  "You believe the Americans' accounts of future history?"

  "With caution," Vitelleschi murmured.

  Urban nodded. "In some regards they may be being selective with the information they release, the father-general tells us. It is what he would do in their place, for in the father-general's eyes the only word that should be passed freely is the Gospel, is that not so, Muzio?"

  Vitelleschi nodded.

  "But there have been too many unplanned releases, I think. The book that caused such trouble in England, for example, and the Congden Library, which may be under control in Grantville now—" Urban paused to let Vitelleschi speak.

  "The change in the information coming out of Congden argues for it. It is no longer the original printed books, but manuscript copy. Who knows what is added by the copyist?"

  Urban chuckled. "Muzio, I take counsel of your caution. But it remains"—he grew serious again—"that I have either an opportunity or a sure route to disaster and it lies in a Protestant nation."

  "You seek to ally the Church with the Swede?" It was the only Protestant nation Urban could mean, and Barberini could hardly refrain from blurting out his amazement.

  "Ah, there is the beauty of it, Nephew," said Urban. "There is no establishment of religion in the United States of Europe. I cannot be their ally, can I? If nothing else, meeting the priest whom their prime minister trusts enough to appoint as an ambassador will give me some clue, some hint about how to harness their strength to the betterment of the Church."

  "And what is that?" Barberini asked.

  "I do not know, Antonio," said Urban, and turned away to look at his new-growing garden. "I do not know."

  The pope spent some time studying a moving insect. "I only know that I had never imagined it would come to this, in the long decades of my life. That, in my old age, God would place me before that same choice he gave Becket. What thoughts move through His unknowable mind, that He would choose two such worldly men for such a test?"

  When he had been silent for a quarter hour or more, both Barberini and Vitelleschi left, in different directions.

  Chapter 28

  Ducos coughed discreetly at the door. D'Avaux nodded, once, permitting the man entry. At least Ducos remembered that Seigneur le Comte deserved a modicum of dignity and took pains to respect it. D'Avaux, feeling guilt at indulging a passion so strong as hatred, darted his glance across the desk to the pil
e of papers on the corner. All of the reports on Buckley, and by him. He forced calm upon his troubled soul. To grow irrational through the righteous anger of wounded honor would simply not do.

  "Seigneur le Comte," Ducos said, after the silence had grown uncomfortable, and bowed.

  D'Avaux collected himself. Yes, he had grown distracted and omitted the proper protocol. Permissible between familiars, but with even so exalted a servant as Ducos—not unpardonable, but nevertheless noblesse oblige required otherwise. "Ducos, if it please you, do you have something to report?"

  "Several matters, master," Ducos said. His face hardly moved as he spoke, but there seemed to be a faint smile in every syllable his voice spoke. The smile of a cat sauntering away from a mousehole licking his chops. D'Avaux pulled his desk lamp closer—the hour was late, midnight close at hand—and turned to face his man. A crook of the eyebrow invited him to proceed.

  "As to the American Buckley, I have arranged matters. Seigneur le Comte's proposal that the Turks be involved or implicated proved impractical, and I have therefore suborned a member of the Holy Office's retinue to the deed."

  D'Avaux felt a thrill of shock. "Ducos, I gave orders for no such . . ." He trailed off. "No," he said when he had collected himself again, "first give me the remainder of your report."

  "Yes, seigneur. The Turk delegation declines to speak of Buckley. They are well disciplined and bring all their own slaves, so it is very difficult to make any progress with them. Had they a long-established presence in Venice there would be known avenues of approach, but this mission is ad hoc and improvisation has availed nothing in the time I have had. The short time since they arrive also means that Buckley has had no time to give plausible offense. I can do nothing to place any Turk even near the scene of the deed, or Buckley plausibly in the company of any Turk."

  D'Avaux leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "Pray continue, Ducos. How did you proceed from there to the Holy Office?" This was beginning to sound intriguing, particularly as Ducos had had to improvise, a practice foreign to his nature. To both their natures, if it came to it. The unexpected was not an experience d'Avaux relished.

  "Seigneur." Ducos made a little bow before going on. "I proceeded with ordinary matters after my rebuff early in the day with the Turks. I had news, perhaps some small moments earlier than the seigneur did, of the latest developments in the business of the astronomer Galileo, when I paid a visit to my contacts with the Holy Office."

  D'Avaux began to wonder where this was going. The business with Galileo was a slightly vexing one, to be certain. Few people of education regarded the matter as anything too serious; perhaps the interpretation of Scripture required to be looked at afresh, as the Lyncaeans suggested, or perhaps the astronomers were chasing proverbial moonbeams as well as the real thing. D'Avaux considered himself a man of parts, but there seemed to be a new advance in natural philosophy every year—this Galileo responsible for a fair fraction himself—and just keeping up with his own country's advances in the mathematics was hard enough. Although . . .

  D'Avaux had heard, he now remembered, that this affair with Galileo was apparently something of a notoriety in the history books brought by the Americans through the Ring of Fire. Those wretched, miserable history books that had caused so much unexpectedness in d'Avaux's well-ordered life. Cardinal Richelieu could say what he wanted. In private, the comte was quite certain the Ring of Fire was of diabolic origin.

  He blinked once, twice, suddenly aware he was wandering away from the point. "He is to be tried, yes?"

  "He is to be tried. This will come as something of a relief to the Holy Office, I understand, which will be pleased to stop paying bounties on copies of Galileo's book." There was a hairline smile on Ducos' face. "There are some enterprising souls in Venice who, when they heard there was a bounty on each copy, began printing cheap and shoddy copies and turning them in by the box-full."

  D'Avaux frowned back. "I should think such a mockery was hardly a laughing matter, Ducos." To a pious man like d'Avaux, the situation was all the more aggravating in that the Venetian authorities were obviously complicit in the matter. Tacitly, at least. Such a clandestine printing press was quite illegal in Venice, and the Council of Ten's agents were perfectly capable of closing it down had they chosen to do so. Just another instance in which the Venetians were subtly thumbing their noses at the Church and its institutions.

  Ducos' face straightened immediately. "Seigneur, my apologies. I simply have regard for an audacious scheme, while at once condemning the motivation for it."

  D'Avaux felt his own face cracking. "And the fact that the Holy Office is made the butt of this joke is of no account, eh?"

  Ducos nodded acknowledgement. There were subjects troubling even for his icy demeanor—the Holy Office had hardly been needed for his Huguenot coreligionists in France. It was only understandable that Ducos should find jokes at the expense of organs of Mother Church to be entertaining. But it would not do to let him laugh out loud without reminding him he was, when all was said and done, a heretic.

  "Seigneur," was all he said. Though his face seemed tighter than ever.

  "And how will Galileo's trial assist?" d'Avaux asked, after granting Ducos a moment to compose himself.

  "It had been said that the pope would surely instruct the Holy Office that there was to be no revision of scriptural interpretation, seigneur. It was further said that there was no prospect of Galileo's book remaining lawful to possess anywhere in Italy, and there had been some suggestion that Galileo might be prevailed upon to flee to the Swede's territories. To that end, he had been kept under close watch while his ill health prevented him from traveling to Rome."

  "And you have reason to doubt this?" D'Avaux was intrigued.

  "Until today, seigneur, no. However, there is a factor that is the talk of the lower ranks of the Holy Office here, and that is Mazarini."

  "The legate?"

  "The same. He has been to and from Venice and Rome repeatedly while the Americans have been here, and it is now emerging that the American priest, Mazzare, has been in communication with Rome. He is commanded to Rome to speak at the trial of Galileo, seigneur."

  "I confess I cannot see why." D'Avaux spent a moment turning it over in his mind. "What is the pope thinking? The American is neither inquisitor nor natural philosopher, and he has no name as a doctor of theology."

  "It is thought that all these Americans have a great command of natural philosophy, seigneur. It is reported to me—with what accuracy I cannot at present judge—that Mazarini impressed this upon either the Holy Office or the pope himself. For this reason they seek this American priest as amicus curiae or some such." Ducos made a small, dismissing wave of the hand. "I confess I know little of the proper procedure in such matters, and this may be entirely normal."

  "It is not, as it happens," d'Avaux said, musingly. "It is not at all. I cannot see that even the See of Rome will lightly prevail upon a priest's vows of obedience to call him away from a secular mission imposed by his prince—even if, in this case, the prince involved calls himself a 'prime minister.' There must be more to it."

  However, this troubling issue was not a matter to be discussed with a heretic like Ducos, d'Avaux reminded himself. He crooked a finger to invite Ducos to continue. "But we digress. You were explaining why the Holy Office will kill Buckley."

  "Seigneur. Buckley has publicized the scheme with the Galileo books. Every town with a printing press can print copies of the book for a sum less than the bounty offered, and so—"

  "A profit margin, yes. And I see the humor in it, Ducos." There was a trace of frost in his voice. "Up to a point."

  "The seigneur is most kind. I understand that there was an argument some weeks ago whether a bounty was to be paid on copies that had been bound with the ink still wet. Many pages were apparently blurred and unreadable. The concluding argument was that if the Inquisition wished to announce that the book was now acceptable in the booksellers of Venice, the
pious citizens would cease buying up the copies and turning them in. Since there is as yet no firm order banning the book, the Inquisition is in a tricky position carrying out its orders to suppress the thing."

  D'Avaux was impressed. Even for Ducos, that had been deadpan. "Do go on."

  "Yes, seigneur. Buckley has published a further piece roundly denouncing the folly of the scheme and encouraging others to use the printing press to break the Inquisition. He has even coined a phrase: 'Information wants to be at liberty.' It is beginning to be passed as a slogan, seigneur."

  " 'Information wants to be at liberty.' " D'Avaux turned the idea over and over in his mind. "What a remarkable proposition. Is he some manner of pagan, then, believing that mere thoughts and words have their own animating spirit that might express such a desire?"

  "Most droll, seigneur. It is nevertheless a slogan that people may act upon. The Holy Office is most concerned." Ducos reported it flatly, in the tones of one remarking that the weather continued fair, rather than the tones of one suggesting that the feared Inquisition was growing vexed with someone.

  "And yet it is not heresy, which surely makes it not the concern of the Holy Office?" D'Avaux found the argument of the avocatus diaboli surprisingly easy to formulate. "Is it not the case that absent palpable heresy, there is value in freedom of speech? Many advance this argument."

  "None among the Holy Office, seigneur. And Buckley advances the argument in support of suspected heresy. They grow concerned and turn to stratagems to silence Buckley."

  "And you have provided them with one?"

  "Indeed, seigneur. And in the same stroke I believe we will also prevent any closer contact forming between the Swede and Rome."

  "Between the arch-Protestant of northern Europe and His Holiness? Surely there was no great danger of that?"