1635: The Cannon Law

Epilogue

Rome

Giovanna peered into the earthenware jug that the jailer had brought in that morning. She could manage the night despite the thirst. There would be another jug in the morning, as there had been for the last two mornings. She had had to use most of it to get Frank clean, since she had been allowed to share a cell with him. They had let a doctor at him, and the bandages were clean, at least. It was the rest of him, the cuts, the bruises, the scrapes and gouges. And the soot and the dust he'd been covered with, and the dried blood.

He was still breathing, for which Giovanna thanked God. They had left Giovanna her rosary, which had been her mother's. She'd been trying for years to follow her father's revolutionary precepts but she'd not been able to bear to throw the thing away. Here and now, it was a great comfort. She even remembered the right prayers to say.

Would it do any good? They'd told her there was to be a new pope soon, that the old one was dead in the ruins of the Castel Sant'Angelo. The last light of a summer's evening came through the tiny, barred window, and she stared up at the indigo sky in which stars were starting to appear. Outside she could hear the sounds of soldiers marching about. She'd heard only snatches of the sack of the city that was going on outside. Sometimes there was screaming, and earlier in the day she'd heard the grisly sounds of an execution outside. From the window, she'd just been able to see that someone was being garroted. Someone in a priest's clothes. She'd tried to think of it as the inevitable bloodshed when the forces of reaction fell to fighting among themselves, but what she'd seen had been an old man being strangled.

It made thinking about anything beyond the next jug of water and loaf of bread… hard. The last of the daylight was falling on Frank's face now. His eyes were twitching a little under his eyelids, and his breathing had the rasp of his soft snores. She hoped that was a good sign. The linen of the bandage around his head was crusted with blood, and she had not dared try to change it. There was a finger missing from his left hand, the ring finger. That seemed to have stopped oozing now, and she hoped she'd kept it clean and dry enough. The broken leg seemed to have been set well enough, but she could not tell under the splint and the strapping.

They'd told her that he'd been shot, but only grazed by two bullets, and the rest had happened when the building collapsed. That he had not been beaten, or shot by anyone's order. That the shooting had been an accident in the tension of surrender and the bruises from being buried under rubble.

Why Spanish soldiers should care that she thought of them any better than she did, she had no idea. But they had put her in here to nurse her husband, which was worth far more than any apologies. She had been weeping, barely able to breathe for grief until they told her Frank was alive. They'd also told her they did not have enough jailers to nurse all the injured prisoners, and needed the cell space anyway.

It helped that the Spaniards were using Roman jailers, who didn't seem all that enthusiastic about keeping prisoners for the Spanish Inquisition. They were doing their best to keep everyone in the cell block healthy and comfortable.

And Frank still slept. She had heard stories of people who never awoke after head injuries, and every hour Frank slept made her think about them some more. He had the beginnings of a fever, too. If any of his wounds became gangrenous, only the mercy of her jailers would bring a doctor to save him from it.

There was a rattle of keys in the corridor. Someone was coming.

"Senora?" The voice wasn't the usual jailer, a native Roman, but a Spanish-accented voice. Giovanna put down the jug and stepped away from the door when the spyhole clacked open. There was murmured conversation outside and then another rattle of keys. The door opened and it was the Spanish captain who had had her captured but let everyone else go. And who had had Frank shot.

She choked down the urge to hurl herself at him and try to choke the life from him. Getting herself killed would not help Frank and, anyway, the man had been under orders from that foul priest who had spent hours making her feel filthy with his eyes.

"Yes?" she said, after taking a deep breath, and then stopped. What else to say to such a man?

"It is no large thing I can do, Senora Stone y Marcoli," the captain said, "but I felt I must make at least some small apology, however humble, for my part in what has happened."

"My husband is still alive-" Giovanna resisted the urge to spit Spaniard! at the man in lieu of a name she did not know. "-Spanish soldier. He may awaken any time now."

"I pray for this happy outcome," the man said, and Giovanna wondered to see that he clearly meant it. There was sincerity written all over his face, despite his somewhat cracked Italian.

"Thank you, sir," she said, wondering what the man's name was. She'd caught that he was a captain when she'd been held there on that street, watching them shoot cannons at the place she'd made home for all those months, the place where her husband had been hiding and had come out of to be shot. "He sleeps now. He has slept for days. I worry, but they will not send a doctor again. I have asked and asked, but they will not send a doctor, and I have done all I can."

She ached to ask for his help, and pride would not stop her. What stopped her was fear of what the answer would be. She could keep herself warm with hope in a cold cell. If he said no, even that paltry rag of comfort would be taken away.

The pleading must have shown in her face. "I will ask on your behalf, senora," the captain said. "And while the pleas of Don Vincente Jose-Maria Castro y Papas may count for little, I will not have it said that they were not entered in the right ears. I do not know if you are military prisoners, civil prisoners or in the hands of the Inquisition, senora, but it may be that I can sow some little confusion and see to it that the standards of the military are upheld. Even the standards of the Inquisition would be an improvement, I think."

Giovanna bowed her head in gratitude. Gratitude and not a little fear-would he demand-?

She looked up, and saw no lechery in what she now realized was the face of quite a young man. Thirty-five, no more. And yet a face lined with cares. She had seen him argue with the other Spaniard, the priest, and realized that the argument, and what he had had to do when he lost it, had both cost him in their own way.

"Thank you," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I would say that what happened was entirely against my will, senora," he said, "but this is no comfort. Please, accept my apologies nevertheless. There is little about this business"-he waved a hand in the air, taking in the whole of Rome in one weary little circle-"that I can atone for in any way save what was placed in my hands to do. I did it, but there is no honor in it, no pride."

There was nothing Giovanna could think of to say. Could she even say she forgave him, when she felt no forgiveness, no pity? Even as recompense for the crumb of charity he had offered? The words would not come. After a long and uncomfortable silence, the captain left.

She went to sit by Frank. "Do you hear, my love?" she whispered to his sleeping ear. "They may send another doctor to help you. I pray they will."

"I pray they will too," he whispered back. "I feel like shit."

"Frank?" she cried aloud, "Are-"

He hissed, and she fell silent. "Not so loud," he said. "I figure so long as they think I'm out they won't do anything. I think I woke up when that guy was in here."

"Captain Papas?" she asked.

"Was that him? I thought that was a dream-" his breath rattled as he spoke-"water?"

She offered the jug, and he drank the last of the water greedily. Giovanna knew she could wait for more, but Frank had had no more than the dribbles she had dripped through his lips for days.

"God, that tastes good," he whispered, his throat still plainly raw. "I feel weak as a kitten. I don't think I could move much even if I wanted to."

"Don't," Giovanna whispered back. "Your leg is broken, and you have other injuries."

"Yeah, I can feel-God, I can't tell. Everything hurts. The leg's bad, though."

"Lie still, Frank, if we can fool them long enough…"

"Yeah." His smile seemed to outshine the starlight that lit their cell. "Something's bound to turn up."

Padua, Italy

"Well, that's that," said Tom Simpson, demonstratively slapping his hands together, as if clearing them of dust.

"What's what?" demanded Melissa. She was glaring at the Venetian soldiers who were barring the road to Venice-and doing so just as demonstratively.

Tom gave her a sage look. "We've done what we can, come as far as the road takes us. If you give me a minute or two, I can probably drum up a few more cliches."

"Very funny," snapped Melissa.

"He's got a point, hon," said Dr. Nichols. He nodded toward the soldiers. "On the positive side, they've got ten times as many troops guarding the road into Padua. I figure the pope's safe enough for the moment, now that we're in Venice's terraferma. "

"Don't call me 'hon,' " Melissa snapped.

Nichols rolled his eyes. "Sure, babe, whatever you say."

Sharon couldn't suppress a gurgling laugh. Just… couldn't. Melissa's face had practically turned purple.

Melissa started to glare at her, but halfway through started a gurgling laugh of her own.

"Okay, I surrender!" she exclaimed. " 'Hon' it is. Anything's better than 'babe.' For God's sake, James, I'm sixty years old."

"Don't look a day over fifty-five, hon," Nichols assured her.

"Indeed so!" boomed Ruy, who had just emerged from the door of the very big taverna they were standing not far from. He gave Sharon a smile and a little nod. Then, swept off his hat and gave Melissa a sweeping bow that would have dazzled the court at Madrid. "I, Ruy Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz, swear it is true!"

That was good for a real laugh, and from everybody.

When that was over, Melissa asked: "So now what?"

"At a guess," replied Rita, "Italy starts going up in flames. A good chunk of the rest of Europe as well. With those two over there"-she wiggled a thumb in the direction of the pope and his nephew, who were engaged in some sort of negotiations with three Venetian senators-"pouring on the gasoline."

Tom studied them. The pope and the cardinal were enjoying the shade next to the taverna's wall. Also enjoying a bottle of wine.

"I say we join them," he proposed.

"By all means," said Sharon. "You do so."

"You're not joining us?" asked Rita.

"No. Maybe tomorrow. For the moment…" She took Ruy by the hand. "My husband has made arrangements for a room."

"Rooms for everyone," Ruy added. "Separate rooms."

Seeing that everyone was staring at her, Sharon sniffed haughtily. "The stresses of the past period may have scrambled your brains and made you forget everything. But not me. Our wedding was interrupted, remember?"

And she was off, Ruy in tow.

"Well, that's that," said Tom.

Madrid, Spain

Philip IV had been staring out the window of the Alcazar throughout the count-duke of Olivares' report on the situation in Rome. Now, his hands still clasped behind his back, he hunched forward a bit. As if he were looking for someone in the gardens below.

"How many assassins do we have in our employ, Gaspar?"

The count-duke had been afraid of that royal reaction. He inhaled, preparatory to launching a little speech on the virtues of caution.

"However many there are," the king of Spain continued-there was a snarl coming into his voice now-"I want each and every one of them dispatched to Rome immediately. With firm and clear instructions to bring me back the head of Cardinal Gaspar Borja y Velasco. Note carefully-make sure to pass this along to the assassins-that I used the title Cardinal. "

The explosion finally came. The king unclasped his hands and slammed the palm of the right hand against one of the window panes. Fortunately, the glass was thick and well made. "We'll see how much that bastard likes the title 'pope' when he stares down at his severed neck impaled on a pike!"

"Better if we could have him brought back alive," said Don Jeronimo de Villanueva.

Olivares gave him a warning glance, but the Protonotario of the Crown of Aragon was too furious to notice. His own words had been said in a snarl.

"We could then entertain ourselves at leisure, with his torture," he finished.

Fortunately, the other two members of the hastily assembled council present, Jose Gonzalez and Antonio de Contreras, were more phlegmatic by temperament-and, unlike Villanueva, had been keeping an eye on their patron's reaction. They knew the count-duke of Olivares quite well, and interpreted the expression on his face correctly.

"I think we need to be cautious here," said Gonzalez.

He said it cautiously, of course. Granted that Philip IV was not generally a hot-tempered man; granted also, he normally left matters of governance to the count-duke while the king entertained himself with his patronage of art and literature. Still, he was the king of Spain, and he was in an obvious rage.

The king turned away from the window, bringing his heavy-boned face to bear on that of his advisor. The sweeping royal mustachios were practically quivering, below the prominent nose and above the classic Habsburg chin and lower lip.

" Why? " he bellowed. He pointed a rigid finger at the window. "That-that-"

"Traitor," Villanueva unhelpfully supplied. "Madman, also."

"Yes! That madman -that traitor -has just managed to bring down into ruins Our entire foreign policy! Every bit of it!"

"Ah-not quite, Your Majesty," said Olivares.

The king brought the glare to bear on him. "Indeed? Please explain to me, Count-Duke, which aspect of Our policy the creature Borja has not destroyed."

Philip didn't wait for an answer. Although he didn't concern himself with the day-to-day business of ruling the Spanish empire, the king was neither stupid nor ill informed. Most times, Olivares found that a blessing. On some occasions, however-this certainly being one of them-it was something of a curse.

The king brought up his thumb. "Shall We begin with a recitation of the casualties suffered by Our armies in the north? We recall them quite well, Gaspar, even if you seem to have mysteriously forgotten. How, We can't imagine-since those dismal figures were the principal subject of your report to Our council not so very long ago."

The forefinger came up. It was a large finger, and very stiff. Olivares had to restrain a momentary and quite insane urge to giggle. He had no difficulty imagining Borja impaled on that royal digit.

"Let's move on to a consideration of our military situation. We were all agreed that we faced an unavoidable period of retrenchment, did we not? While we scraped up the money-We shall get to that subject in a moment!-in order to recruit more troops and arm them with the new weapons that the cursed Swede and his American witches have inflicted on the world.

"Did we not?" he shouted.

A nod of hasty obeisance was called for here, and Olivares-hastily-provided it.

"Splendid," continued the king. The middle finger came up. "Let us now consider Our financial position-which is perilous, as always. The last thing we needed was to have a madman-no, a traitor!-produce a situation in Italy which will-unavoidably, Olivares, deny it if you can!-force us to pour bullion into that miserable peninsula."

Olivares tried to say something, but Philip would have none of it. "Deny it if you can! With the troops that madman-no, that traitor!-pulled out of Naples to carry through his adventure, tell me-if you can, Olivares!-that we will not face a rebellion in southern Italy."

"I agree that the financial damage will be extensive, Your Majesty," Olivares said smoothly. He needed to divert the king from too much thought on the subject of Italian rebellions. At least for the moment, when he was in such a fury.

In point of fact, Olivares was quite sure they faced something considerably worse than the usual rebelliousness of Neapolitans. He had not mentioned in his report-and now thanked God that he hadn't-the last item of information. That Borja had not only overthrown the existing pope, but that he had also managed to let Urban escape. And to do so, to make the disaster complete, with the assistance of the USE embassy to Rome!

Was it really too much to ask, that a madman not be a complete incompetent as well?

Thankfully, Villanueva was finally coming to his senses. Realizing the precipice that the royal anger might plunge them over, the protonotario hurried to add: "My reports are that the latest bullion fleet from the New World will be bringing more silver than usual, Your Majesty. I think-combined with some tax levies, no way now to avoid them-that we will manage well enough."

That caused the first break in Philip's escalating temper.

"Really?" he asked.

Villanueva gave the king a nod of such assured confidence that Olivares forgave him his recent sins. For all the world, you'd think Don Jeronimo actually knew what he was talking about.

Which, he didn't. Villanueva knew just as well as Olivares did that there was no way, this early, to be sure what amounts of bullion would be coming over from the New World. Even leaving aside the ever-present danger of piracy, which was especially acute now with the remnants of the Dutch fleet still at large in the Caribbean.

But the count-duke was not a man to sneer at blessings, wherever they were found and however gilded they might be.

"Indeed, Your Majesty," he said, lying just as smoothly as Villanueva had. "Furthermore-"

In the end, it worked out as well as Olivares could have hoped for. The king was still furious, but had bowed to necessity.

"We simply have no choice, Your Majesty. Yes, Borja's actions were completely unsanctioned and went far beyond any instructions we gave him. But the fact remains that to disavow him now would simply produce a still worse situation. Your brother's disaffection in the Low Countries"-he was tempted to call it treason, but refrained-"is sure to deepen. I fear also that our Austrian cousins will do the same, now that Ferdinand II has been succeeded by his son."

And there was another casualty of Borja's insane ambition. In truth, Olivares had looked forward to dealing with Ferdinand III instead of his predecessor. The son was three times as smart and not given to his father's pigheadedness. Unfortunately, that same intelligence would now lead him away from Spain, not toward it. Olivares was just as glumly certain of that as he was that he would soon face rebellions and uprisings all through the Italian peninsula.

"But for all those reasons," he continued, "we have no choice but to hail the restoration of the true faith to the See of Rome. The coming storm is of Borja's making, not ours-but a storm it will surely be. To throw over Borja would be to throw over our oars as well as the mast that Borja himself demolished."

That evening, Olivares had two other meetings. No broad councils, these, but secretive affairs.

The first was with the envoy from Monsieur Gaston. Whom Olivares had carefully ignored in the past, but could do so no longer. With Spain now divided still further from both other branches of the Habsburgs-he cursed Borja yet again-the empire could no longer afford the luxury of a careful policy with regard to France.

"Yes," he told him. "We will supply you with money. Troops also, if need be. But!"

He wagged an admonishing finger under the miserable Capucin's nose. "Only if you can demonstrate some results."

The second meeting was more secretive still. Olivares even went to the extreme of leaving his palace in disguise to make the encounter in a taverna.

"You can reach someone in Borja's forces?" he asked. "It will need to be an officer."

The man he sometimes used as an informal agent gave him a nod. "I can reach several. More than you might think. I can assure you, Count-Duke, that you are not the only one who thinks our beloved former cardinal is a rogue."

He cocked his head, slightly. "You wish…"

Olivares shook his head. "No assassination. The king was most explicit on the matter."

He hadn't been at all, actually. But there was no reason to bring that up.

"My concern is not with Borja, at the moment. My concern is with the American prisoner. And his Venetian wife."

The agent nodded. "So I've heard. You want them…"

Olivares scowled. "Is it the wine, Pedro?"

He lifted his own glass, which was still mostly full. In truth, the wine was wretched. This taverna was not one that Olivares would have ever frequented on his own behalf.

"That keeps your mind fixed to murder, like a mouse to bait?"

The agent chuckled. "I point out to you-"

"Yes, yes," Olivares said impatiently, "I know what I normally ask of you. But this situation is quite different. We will most likely be at war again with the USE, and much sooner than I had either planned or anticipated. I should think the rest follows."

The agent studied him, for a moment, slowly twirling his glass around. He'd drunk very little of the wine himself.

Then, he smiled, more thinly still. "Yes, I understand. The prisoner is simply a boy. His wife, younger still-and now pregnant, by the accounts. Emotions would run high if they were to meet a sordid end in Borja's dungeon."

"High, indeed."

The agent was almost grinning, now. The expression was quite insufferable, in a way. But Olivares made no reproof. He didn't like the man, not in the least. But he had all the skills of the cursed Quevedo, with none of Quevedo's flamboyance and carelessness.

For this subject, that was all that mattered. The next few years were going to be stressful enough, for the count-duke of Olivares. He didn't need to add to that burden the constant memory of Wallenstein being struck down at a distance of half a mile-because Borja couldn't resist further exercises in madness.

"Yes, exactly. He's just a boy; and she, just a pregnant girl of a wife. Let's make sure they keep that modest status, shall we? The world has martyrs enough."

Magdeburg

Mike Stearns gave the man slouched in a chair in his office the Official Stern Look. "You understand-given the circumstances-that this is entirely unofficial?"

"Goes without saying," came the reply. Mike hadn't expect the Look to do much good.

"Fine. I hate to do this, but…" He shrugged. "I figure you're the best one for the job we've got. Going by the record."

"Hey, Mike, it's no sweat. Really."

Harry Lefferts rose from the chair and donned his wrap-around sunglasses. The ones he loved, that made him look like an extra from a bad thriller. Especially combined with the boots and the Lee Van Cleef cutaway jacket. The less said about the hat the better.

In a chair over in the corner, Francisco Nasi looked to be choking on something.

"One jailbreak, coming up," said Harry. "My specialty."

As he headed for the door, he said: "It'll be the talk of Europe."

On his way out, he added: "Again."