by Eric Flint
Nor was it caused—well, perhaps a bit—by the inevitable mob of cherubs lifting the soul of slaughtered Magdeburg to Heaven, accompanied by the inescapable angels blowing upon their horns.
No, it was the centerpiece that Francisco could never look at without having to suppress the urge to riotous laughter. The babe, of course, was to be expected. Magdeburg reborn, looking much like any babe. But the young mother so tenderly cradling the infant . . . the obvious symbolism, the allegory to the birth of Christ . . .
He must have choked. Mike glanced at him. "What's so funny?"
Francisco shook his head. "Oh, nothing. I was just thinking of the mother in that grotesque new painting of yours." He hooked a thumb over his shoulder, not daring to actually look. They did have serious business to conduct, this day.
Mike glanced at the huge painting, and smiled. "I have to admit I get a kick out of it myself. I will say that Pieter did one hell of good job, having to work from memory the way he did, with the model still back in Amsterdam." He went back to staring out the window, the smile still on his face. "Spitting image of my wife. Who is, ah, no longer a virgin and has never been a Christian at any time."
He hooked his own thumb over his shoulder. "But don't lie, Francisco. I know you think that other one is even funnier."
Nasi examined the portrait to which the thumb was pointed. It was not a portrait, as such, but one of the few photographs hanging up on the walls. A classic example of that peculiar sub-genre of the visual arts known as Politics, American, Crass Beyond Belief.
"Indeed. Michael Stearns. Cheerfully eating the first Hans Richter Victory Sandwich produced by the Freedom Arches in Magdeburg. What are the ingredients, again?"
"Baltic rye bread, Danish ham and cheese, with, of course, the essential splash of French dressing. It's not bad, actually."
The prime minister turned away from the window. "All right, Francisco, enough of the drollery. I know you could bring down the house with your comedy routines. Well, anywhere except in Istanbul."
Nasi winced. "Risky business, that. Murad the Mad is prone to assuming that all jokes are at his expense."
Stearns pointed to the file. "I also know that you're just stalling because this is one of the few subjects you don't feel particularly knowledgeable about. I understand that. I don't expert a Sephardic Jew from Istanbul to be the world's expert on the inner workings of the Roman Catholic Church. Still, what's your best estimate?"
"The truth? I think we are sensing a tremor beneath our feet. The first sign of a coming political earthquake."
Mike stared down at the file, his hands now planted on the desk. "That's what I think, too. Jesus, Joseph and Mary."
Nasi shook his head. "The man will not take sides, you understand."
"Don't be silly, Francisco. He has been taking a side, whether he liked it or not—which, by all reports, he didn't much." Stearns rapped the file with a finger. "Simply the act of declaring neutrality is taking a side, when you're already on one."
"Not what I meant. Sorry. I only intended to say that I think there is no chance—no chance at all—that the pope will do or say anything overtly which could in any way be construed—formally, you understand—as an alliance of any kind with the United States of Europe."
Mike gave Nasi a very placid look. Francisco braced himself. That sleepy expression invariably signaled the coming sarcasm.
"At a rough guess, Francisco, I could get the same assessment from two out of three urchins in the streets of Magdeburg. Nineteen out of twenty, in the streets of Rome. Maffeo Barberini who was, Urban VIII who is, has been accused of a lot of things in his sixty-some-odd years. Deviousness, manipulation, cynicism—not to mention a truly breathtaking devotion to nepotism—but never once, that I can recall, being a moron. Try again."
Nasi sighed. "Michael, this is not a subject—"
"Try again."
"Tyrant!"
"Try again."
Nasi puffed out his cheeks. "You'd do better to ask von Spee. He's back in town, you know."
"Good idea. I will. Try again. And I'll make it easy for you, since you brought up von Spee. Who is still, I remind you, a Jesuit."
Stearns gave Nasi a little encouraging jiggle of the chin, the way a mother encourages her toddler to say mama. "Don't try to start with a pope maybe undergoing a real and profound crisis of conscience. Start with what you know. Would Urban even consider this if he didn't think he had Vitelleschi in his corner? And I'm not talking about that famous fourth vow of obedience. I'm talking about the father-general of the Jesuits—the Black Pope, they sometimes call him—being really in his corner."
Francisco felt the ground stabilize beneath his feet. "No," he said firmly. "Not a chance."
"What I think, too." Stearns stared at the file on the desk. Then, suddenly, slammed his open palm down upon it. Stearns had big hands. The loud noise almost startled Nasi out of his chair.
"Hot damn!" Mike exclaimed. "Hot diggedy-damn. Chew on that, Richelieu. And you can downright choke on it, you stinking emperor of Austria. And you, puke-face elector of Bavaria, you can take your so-called Catholic League and stick it where the sun don't shine. Y'all just lost your fig leaf. 'Bout to, anyway. If that wasn't enough—you morons!—you just lost the help of what is probably still the most effective political organization in Europe. Maybe the whole world, the way the Japanese seem to be squawking. Sure as hell the most experienced."
Suddenly energetic, Mike slid himself into his chair. "Okay. First. You're right. Get von Spee in here, ASAP. Second, get in touch with Spartacus and tell him I'll want a private meeting. Private as in private. If I have to, I'll use regular soldiers and goddamit firing squads to put a stop to any and all anti-Jesuit riots from now on. But I'd really prefer it if the Committees handled the problem informally."
"Ah, I believe what you're alluding to is actually illegal, Michael, not 'informal.' "
"Sure is," Mike said cheerfully. "And be assured that I will so inform Spartacus in no uncertain terms. If I catch the Committees doing anything illegal like pounding the crap out of stinking bigot lynch mobs, I will have them charged and prosecuted to the full extent and rigor of the laws."
"Amazing, really," mused Nasi.
"What?"
"I do not believe I have ever heard a sentence that long which had almost the entirety of its emphasis upon a single word in it. 'Catch.' The rest was practically a murmur."
Mike just grinned. "Third. Get in touch with Morris in Prague and have him feel out Wallenstein. Shouldn't be a problem, I don't think. Wallenstein's always been partial to the Jesuits. He'll probably be tickled pink." The prime minister paused for a moment. "I don't suppose there's any way we could get him to think we're trying to make amends for the ruckus over the copper business, is there?"
Nasi enjoyed the opportunity to bestow a placid look upon his boss.
"Right," Stearns snorted. "Grow up, Mike. 'Wallenstein' and 'moron' don't belong in the same sentence either. So it goes. Fourth. Start sending out feelers—quietly, you understand; I don't need my stubborn Lutheran emperor hollering at me—suggesting that any Jesuit educational project will be more than welcome to set up shop in the USE. Um. Well, hold off on that until we've had a chance to consult with von Spee. We gotta be slick, here. We really can't afford to show our hand openly. Gustav Adolf hollers really, really good, if I say so myself as shouldn't."
Nasi nodded. Mike Stearns was capable of hollering superbly well himself, though he rarely chose to. But Gustav Adolf was in a league of his own. "We should be able to manage well enough, I think. Freedom of religion is the law in the USE after all—"
"—until Wilhelm wins the election," Mike interjected sourly.
"—and in any event, alas, the emperor is preoccupied on the war front. He's not likely to pay much attention to the complex minutiae of educational affairs. Which—you'd be amazed—can get incredibly complex and minute. And don't exaggerate, Michael. Wilhelm and his Crown Loyalists advocate the restora
tion of established churches in those provinces whose legislatures elect to do so, but he's always been very careful to stipulate that no minority faiths—even non-Christian ones—will be penalized in any way. He even insisted on writing that in as a formal part of his party's program."
Mike didn't look noticeably mollified. "Yeah, swell. So members of nonestablished churches get taxed to support the established ones, and then have to pay for their own out of their own pockets." He blew out a breath. "Oh, well. I admit it beats pogroms and inquisitions and auto-da-fé. We do what we can, one step at a time. Mostly, by taking ten steps forward and nine steps back."
"Which is still a step ahead," Nasi replied. "That's a quote, by way, from a speech I recently heard. Given by a man who, I regret to say, I have come to conclude is the most brazen politician in Europe."
He swiveled in his chair and gazed back upon the Allegory of the Rebirth of Magdeburg. "It's astonishing, really. I can—just barely—understand how a superb artist could visualize you in that preposterous Roman armor. But how did he manage the expression on your face?"
Mike glanced at his portrait. "That suggestion of stalwart dim-wittedness? The hint of adulation for the emperor? The mouth that looks like butter wouldn't melt in it?"
Nasi nodded.
"I gave Pieter firm instructions, what do you think? Paid him a good bonus, too. Worth every penny. Gustavus Adolphus thinks very highly of that painting, did I mention that?"
"As I recall, you boasted about it for ten minutes straight."
"Don't be sarcastic, Francisco. It's very unbecoming. Okay, back to business. Fifth—"
Chapter 39
Sharon almost stumbled when she came into the salon of the embassy which, by dint of feverish work throughout the night, had been turned into an impromptu operating room. Fortunately, she caught herself in time to turn the stumble into what she hoped would pass for a dignified pause.
"Jesus, Stoner," she hissed, "you didn't say anything about a mob." She forced herself to scan the room slowly, instead of doing what she felt like doing, which would have resembled a small girl frantically looking everywhere at once, trying to find a bolt hole.
"It's hardly a 'mob,' " Tom Stone murmured. "Okay, yeah, it's a lot of people. But—trust me on this one—they're about as hoity-toity as it comes. No rabble here."
He glanced into one corner of the huge salon, where, atop one of the many heavy tables that had been positioned around three sides of the room to serve as an jury-rigged observers' gallery, Lieutenant Ursinus and two men from the Arsenal were standing. "Well, leaving Conrad and his people aside—but I think both of those guys are guildmasters anyway."
Stoner scanned the room also. The gaze, in his case, was genuinely serene—perhaps even smug—rather than Sharon's desperate attempt to fake it. "You've got just about every doctor in Venice worth calling by the name in this room. They're all good ones, too, I know them. They even scrupulously followed my instructions about being freshly bathed and wearing clean clothes, so far as I can tell. The rest of the people—the ones I made stand in the back because I'm not sure about how closely they followed my sanitation instructions—are political bigshots of one kind or another. According to Taggart, they include one of the doge's aides and at least four senators. He thinks one of them might be on the Council of Ten. Hard to know, of course. There's even a cardinal of the Church—Bedmar, the Spanish guy. I sent somebody to invite him, too, seeing as how it's his main man going under the knife. I didn't think he'd show up, actually."
Sharon's eyes went to the great bank of windows along one wall. The windows faced almost directly to the east, which was the reason she'd picked this salon for her operating room. She had agonized over that decision. Given the nature of Ruy's wound, she'd wanted to operate as soon as possible. Waiting twelve hours was a terrible risk—an unconscionable one, had she still been in the world she'd come from. But that world had electric lighting and this one didn't. Sharon had finally decided that the risk of trying abdominal surgery by lamplight was worse than the risk of waiting till sunrise—and would have been, even if she were an experienced surgeon instead of a nurse trying to pass herself off as one.
"It's not even six o'clock in the morning," she protested.
Stoner smiled. "Yeah, but the light's pretty terrific, you gotta admit. The sun's been up for almost an hour, shining right in now, and—" He bestowed a lingering and very approving look upon the eclectic collection of lighting aids that surrounded the operating table. "Billy did one hell of a job. And he was right about those tailor's globes. Filled with water, they make a lot of difference. Especially with the mirrors."
"That's not what I meant," Sharon hissed again. "How the hell did you get all these people here this early? Especially when you just got back yesterday yourself?"
By way of an answer, Stoner simply gave her an ironic little cock of the eyebrow. Sharon understood it, of course. She'd known the answer before she even finished the question. A world which, outside of Grantville and parts of Magdeburg, still had only oil lamps and candles to illuminate the night was a world where early to bed, early to rise was taken for granted. Even for political bigshots.
"I'm nervous enough already, damn you, Tom. The last thing I need is to try to pull this stunt off in front of a crowd."
Stoner started to say something—one of his usual variations on be cool, Sharon was sure—but then hesitated for a moment. Good thing for him, too. If he had said it, Sharon thought she'd just haul off and belt him one. He might be a pacifist, but she wasn't.
What he did say surprised her. The tone more than the words themselves. It was the first time Sharon could ever remember hearing Tom Stone say anything harshly.
"That's crap, Sharon. You want to know the truth? You're one of those people who does better under pressure than they do any other time. That's partly why I did this. Everybody—except you—knows that about you. Your dad makes jokes about it. 'Best way to make sure Sharon aces a test is to give her no warning.' " He pointed a finger at the operating table. "So just shut up and Sharon, will you? There's a man dying over there. What do you care who's watching? Fuck 'em."
The vulgarity jolted her as much as the tone. Unusually, for a hippie—at least, the two-generations-later brand of hippie that Sharon was familiar with from college—Tom Stone very rarely used foul language.
The jolt made her think about what he'd actually said. Was that true, she wondered?
It might be, actually. She'd always ascribed her tendency to goof off in school until the last minute to plain and simple laziness. But maybe that was her own unconscious way of maximizing her strengths when the time came. Sharon had never once turned in a paper until the very last minute, and for her the words "study" and "cram" were pretty much synonyms. Still, she'd graduated from WVU magna cum laude. Would have made summa if that bum Leroy Hancock hadn't blown two whole semesters out of the water, jacking her around with his lies and promises.
"You're treacherous, Stoner," she murmured. But she was smiling by the end of the sentence, and taking her first step toward the table. "Come on, then. At least I managed to get two hours' sleep, which is more than I usually did before a final exam."
She gave him a sidelong glance. "I do hope that you didn't forget to anesthetize the patient. Being so preoccupied like you were with plotting and scheming."
"Oh, he's under all right. I'll keep dripping ether onto the gauze on his face to keep him under, and just have to hope I gauge it properly. I can tell you all you need to know about the chemical structure of ether and how to make it. But how much of it to use . . ."
Stoner glanced at the crowd. "I did tell all of them—really clear—that if anyone so much as looked like they were going to strike a match, we'd wrestle 'em down and slap them onto the OR table. Do an immediate brainectomy to remove what is obviously a malignant foreign body."
Sharon chuckled and put a hand on his shoulder. Like she herself, Stoner was wearing a scrub gown. She'd brought several with her fro
m Grantville, on the off chance that she might be called upon to do . . . well, exactly what she was going to do. She could tell from the warmth and feel of the fabric that Stoner's gown, like her own, had just recently been sterilized in the steam cleaner that had been one of the first innovations the embassy had made in their little palace.
"Relax, Tom. I'm a lot more likely to kill him than you are, much less a casual smoker. Remind me to compliment Billy, by the way. He's done a fantastic job here."
They were only halfway to the operating table, since Sharon was moving slowly to help compose herself. Billy Trumble was lying on a cot not far away with an IV in his arm. One of the older Marines was lying on a cot next to him. Only two donors, which Sharon wasn't happy about at all. Unfortunately, they knew the blood types of only two of the Scot soldiers who made up most of the embassy guard. Lennox was the other one, and he had A-positive which was no use at all since they didn't know Ruy Sanchez's blood type either.
"It's that silly guilt-trip business," Tom murmured. "Billy's feeling bad because he thinks he screwed up yesterday. Dropping the gun the way he did."
Sharon's lips quirked. "I thought he did great, myself. Hey, look, two of us in that madhouse were amateurs. The pro's the only one who got hurt."
"Well, yeah. But Billy probably figures if he hadn't screwed up the pro wouldn't have been scratched." He gave his head a little shake. "As it is, I had to stop him from donating too many units. Especially with him also running around organizing so much stuff. I wish we'd had somebody besides him and Dalziel still here with type O-negative."
Stoner's lips tightened on that last sentence. Sharon knew that Tom had his own worries. His son Gerry had the universal donor's blood type also. But Gerry had vanished, along with Frank and Ron, nobody knew where. The documents they'd found at the Marcoli house after the deadly brawl had referred to crazy schemes to liberate Galileo and murder the pope. True, those documents had obviously been planted by Ducos' agents. But there had also been notes from Joe Buckley—no doubt about it; Joe's handwriting had been distinctive—which seemed to at least confirm the part about liberating Galileo. Lennox and most of his men were out scouring the city, trying to find out what the truth was.
