Valentino smiled. “I wasted part of my misspent youth hunting. But I was not very good with a bow, and we didn’t have enough money for gunpowder. So I became quite proficient with this-” He reached back into his gear and pulled out the crossbow that all the men had noticed, commented upon, and apparently forgotten about. “These days,” he pontificated, “the crossbow is an underappreciated weapon. What it lacks in killing power it more than makes up for in silence. And that is how we will eliminate the others in the south watch-post: one by crossbow, and the last by Linguanti, here.”
“Oh? And what weapon does he carry?”
“Just this,” said Linguanti, who produced a very thin garrote with lethal fluidity.
“And how will you get close enough to use it?”
“Odoardo, think back-if you can remember anything earlier than a minute ago-and ask yourself: have you ever heard me utter so many words as these?”
“No.”
“And have you ever heard me make a sound when I move, or walk, at all?”
“Uh…no.”
“Neither will the last sentry.”
“Oh.”
Valentino smiled and finished. “And once we are done here”-he drew an X through the southern outpost-“the way is clear to the villa, except for walking patrols.”
“Which will see us and shoot.”
“Not if we wait and pass through the gap in their intervals. And if they do happen to see us and shoot, we will shoot back. Some of us will be killed, but at this point, with all our force concentrated in one place, and with us charging over the flat ground to the south of the villa, we will be upon them quickly. Meaning we will only have the interior guards to deal with. With our numbers, we will finish them quickly-as well as everyone else in the villa. And I mean everyone.”
Odoardo was frowning. “This still isn’t as easy as you said it was going to be when you hired us, Valentino. A pope, a few priests, no more than a dozen up-timers and their retainers. This is a bigger job. More dangerous.”
Valentino smiled. “You are welcome to depart now, Odoardo.” Valentino straightened up. “Anyone is. After all, the fewer of us there are, the fewer ways there are to split the payment. Reales equal to a year’s pay for Spain’s best three thousand man tercio. So I thought a slightly difficult job would be good news, Odoardo. After all, are you-are any of you-eager to have your share reduced by having too many men alive to collect?”
Valentino watched the eyes of his hired murderers rove cautiously about, doing the bloody math of how many men were needed for the job, how many men might die, and how to balance between maximizing the odds of success with the minimum number of final survivors. He saw greed-growing-and no fear. Which was exactly what he wanted to see.
“We heavily outnumber them, we have the advantage of surprise, and we will strike at night. My only concern is that you don’t get tempted to stick a knife in your mate’s back, in order to get a bigger share for yourself.”
Odoardo was still frowning. “There’s only one thing that surprises me about this plan, now.”
“And what is that?”
The huge man suddenly smiled. “That I like it.” He stood. “Let’s go kill a pope.”
Cardinal Antonio Barberini started when Sharon and Ruy emerged from the further shadows of the Garden Room a moment after he started laying out his pens and parchment. “Ambassadora, Don Ruy, I did not see you-”
“You were not supposed to, Your Eminence,” murmured Ruy. “Not until we knew you had entered alone.”
“What? Why do you-?”
“Your Eminence,” interrupted Sharon, “what I need to ask you is not something I want to share with the others.”
“Why? What is it?”
Ruy and Sharon approached Antonio. He did not feel fear, exactly, but a vague sense of dread at the gravity in their expressions.
“We need to ask you to gather some information for us, Your Eminence. Nothing improper, but not the kind of request we can make to any of your peers.”
“And what kind of information could you possibly want that you do not already have? You have heard all the proceedings as well as I have.”
“Yes, but we lack a critical perspective on them.”
Antonio Barberini frowned. “I assure you, I have no special sub rosa knowledge relevant to the proceedings.”
Ruy raised a conciliatory hand. “No, of course not, Your Eminence. But you may make inquiries where we- indeed, where no one else-may.”
Antonio shrugged. “It is strange you should think so; I am the only one who has no juridical role in the process. Mazzare and Wadding are advocates, Vitelleschi is the procedural judge, and my uncle listens. I simply take notes.”
“Yes, of course, Your Eminence-which is why you are the person of whom we must ask our questions. You are an intimate of the court, yet not intimately involved in its official deliberations.”
“Ah, now I see. Since I am the court’s nonentity, you do not violate the propriety of the hearings by asking questions of me.” Barberini smiled crookedly at Ruy. “Your diplomatic courtesy is impeccable, if somewhat depressing for me to hear. We all cherish loftier opinions of our importance than those warranted by our actual roles, I fear.”
Sharon smiled. “I’m sorry we have to go about it this way, Your Eminence. But we have no choice; everyone’s safety is at stake.”
Antonio felt anxious heat across his brow. “How may I help?”
Sharon set her shoulders before asking: “I need to know if your uncle thinks he’s going to decide to seek asylum with the USE or not.”
Antonio laughed. “Again, I suspect your guess is better than mine. And guess is all any of us can do, for I assure you, my uncle has said no more about our proceedings outside of this room than he has said within it.”
Sharon shrugged. “Well, for what it’s worth coming from me, I think your uncle was wise to avoid taking a direct hand in the proceedings. But even so, he is a party to them, and that makes it impossible for us to ask if they’ve led him to any decisions, yet. After all, since we’re personal friends with Cardinal Mazzare, that would be like asking, ‘Hey, Your Holiness, how’s our guy doing in the debate? Is he winning?’”
Antonio returned the smile. “Yes, I see your point. So you are speaking to me in the hope that I might whisper some favorable words in my uncle’s ear?”
Sharon shook her head. “I thought about that, but realized that even if you did consent to say something on our behalf, that would probably just hurt our cause. We’d be doing exactly what Cardinal Wadding is worried that Gustav or his representatives might do: try to meddle in Church affairs. So, no: that isn’t why we want to talk with you now. We just want to know what to prepare for.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, after tonight’s closing statements, your uncle is going to make up his mind pretty quickly. If he says ‘yup, I’m going to seek protection from the USE,’ we know how to proceed. But if he doesn’t-well, that creates difficulties.”
“Yes, I see that-but why did you wait to ask me about this until now?”
“Frankly, because we didn’t want to impose, and because we didn’t foresee how skilled a debater Wadding was going to be.”
Barberini shrugged. “Cardinal Wadding has made some excellent points, but he has hardly won any of the debates decisively. He may not have won any of them at all.”
Ruy offered a dubious frown. “Even if that is true, Your Eminence, Cardinal Wadding has always succeeded in adding a measure of doubt to whatever Cardinal Mazzare has asserted. And as your uncle said, if, at the end, there is any doubt remaining, he must consider those reservations to be God’s own voice whispering in his ear, urging him to avoid compromising the Church by accepting any help from the Swede. And if that were to happen-”
