business back by the Po? No, we knew what they were. But just to be sure, on an occasion when one was sharing wine with me and the other was relieving himself in the bushes, I had Taggart check their bags.” Ruy spread his hands atop his knees. “Mule-drivers are much skilled in stick, staff, and cudgel; they wield them every day as the media whereby they impart their tender encouragements to the lagging creatures in their team. What Taggart found instead were: one well-hidden hanger, two couteaux-breche, two eight-inch daggers, and a garrote. These are not the weapons of mule-drivers, Your Eminence, of this you may be certain.”
“So you suspect they saw Father Wadding arrive on the northern bank of the Po, trailed him, lamed his one horse, and then serendipitously arrived as the solution to his sudden lack of sufficient transportation?”
“Exactly. And when they pleaded the necessity of returning to the same town on the Po, we simply followed. Albeit at some distance; assassins are, themselves, inherently untrusting souls.”
The silence that usurped the final piece of Ruy’s narrative-how that surreptitious pursuit had ended-was long, and not entirely comfortable.
“So,” exhaled Cardinal Barberini, “it seems the danger has been averted. Narrowly, perhaps, but averted.”
“Yes, Your Eminence,” agreed Ruy in a voice that was full of unspoken caveats. “For now.”
Barberini looked like he might have an episode of incontinence, despite his comparatively tender age. “What do you mean, ‘for now’?”
Ruy shrugged. “By eliminating these blackguards shortly after they began their return journey to report to their master, Borja’s spymaster here in the Republic will have considerable difficulty picking up our trail. Had the two been able to send word that they had encountered us, and where, then he would have been able to resume his search from where we sit now, which is far too close to our ultimate destination.”
Barberini spread his hands as if beseeching Providence itself for fair treatment. “But since that information was not relayed, Borja’s spymaster will not know where to search at all; his assassins will have to return to watching for signs or connections at the Venetian embassy.”
Vitelleschi shook his head. He looked at Ruy, who nodded that he was happy to let the vinegary Jesuit point out the flaw in Antonio’s reasoning. “Cardinal Barberini, this would only be true if the man ‘running’ these agents was so foolish as to keep no track of which of his teams were deployed to which towns upon the banks of the Po. When this team is the only one that fails to return, the enemy spymaster will logically deduce two things: that this was the team that encountered Father Wadding and his escort. And that we discovered their true purpose and eliminated them. Meaning he knows at least where along the Po to resume his search.”
“Oh,” said Antonio.
“And when he begins expanding his search from there, his men will eventually come across a small town, several days farther north, in which they will no doubt hear tales of a recent double-murder: a pair of strangers- mule-drivers-who were killed for no reason, and for which there are no suspects. That is the trail-blaze which we unavoidably left behind us, marking our path.”
Barberini turned to Ruy again. “That is why you tracked them for several days before dispatching them: to put that trail blaze closer to the Po. The next agents will now have a larger area to search, and will have to start farther away from us.”
“Yes.”
Barberini nodded. “Now I understand. I had wondered-” Barberini stopped, abashed.
Sharon’s voice was like slate, even in her own ears. “Wondered why we didn’t slit their throats here, Your Eminence? Well, now you know.” But you’ll never know about the hushed argument over doing it at all-really the first dispute Ruy and I have ever had. He was right, damn it; we couldn’t give the assassins any more of our trail than we could help revealing. But I’m no good at staring at the ceiling, alone in my bed, wondering if he’ll live to come back to it. A man his age, playing hide-and-go-seek-and-destroy with assassins on the back roads of rural Italy. I knew I was not cut out to be a cop’s wife; how the hell did I think I’d be able to handle being married to-?
“My heart?”
The voice was Ruy’s: gentle, rich, shaping the words like a gift meant especially for her ears. And the doubt fled, and she knew why she would have married him all over again this very moment. “Yes, Ruy?”
“You seem distracted?”
“I was just thinking about how-how lucky we are. And how safe. Thanks to you.”
Ruy’s eyes widened a little bit; Sharon had not been reticent or oblique about her aversion to his plan. He smiled slowly, warmly at her.
“Lucky, yes,” agreed Barberini moodily, “but not lucky enough. Or safe enough. As you point out, Father Vitelleschi, these murderous rogues will most assuredly draw closer to us once again.”
“Which we anticipate,” said Ruy, rising to his feet so quickly and decisively that, in a man of less poise, it would have seemed that he had leaped to his feet. “And because we can anticipate where along the banks of the Po they will pick up their search, we have trailed some false lures on the roads and along the river.”
Six days later, Father Wadding was riding a little bit ahead of Larry Mazzare; as usual, sticking as close as he could to the pope and his nephew. Oddly, Vitelleschi had been spending more of his time drifting back to ride alongside Mazzare. He didn’t say anything; he just rode in a silence that, over the days, had become companionable.
As always, Father Wadding was riding a little bit ahead, sticking as close as he could to the pope and his nephew. Oddly, Vitelleschi had been spending more of his time drifting back to ride alongside Mazzare. He didn’t say anything; he just rode in a silence that, over the days, had become companionable.
But as they entered a small defile nestled in between the green peaks of the Vincentine PreAlps, with the sun rapidly heading towards its hiding place behind Monte Campomolon, Urban seemed to explain something to Wadding that surprised the Irishman. After a few moments, he slowed his nag so that it ultimately dropped back to put him alongside Vitelleschi. After several long, silent minutes, he cleared his throat. “Father Vitelleschi, if I understand the pope correctly, I have you to thank for ensuring that the Franciscans have maintained their control over St. Isidore’s, in Rome.”
Vitelleschi looked at him sharply. “Father Wadding, I regret to say that your gratitude seems to be misplaced. The decision regarding the legitimacy of Cardinal Ludovisi’s will was not in my purview.”
Mazzare dropped one eyebrow, raised the other. “Would someone care to fill me in on what’s being discussed?”
Wadding nodded. “Certainly, Your Eminence. St. Isidore’s benefactor, Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi, went to be with our eternal Father in 1632. He had long been a friend of the Franciscans, and had been created a Cardinal as Defender of Ireland. Given the signal successes of our Irish College, we rather presumed that he would leave a sustaining legacy for St. Isidore. He evidently did, but the will attributed to him transfers the control of the church and colleges to the Jesuits.”
“Am I to take it that this dispute has been in process for three years, now?” asked Mazzare.
“Just so,” affirmed Vitelleschi. “But the Franciscans, represented in the person of Father Wadding, vigorously contested the legitimacy of this part of the will-”
“Which we did in concert with Cardinal Ludovisi’s younger brother, I will point out,” Wadding was quick to add.
“It is as Father Wadding says,” Vitelleschi nodded as approving of the narrow, winding valley road ahead of them. “At any rate, it was the Sacred Roman Rota that had taken the matter under consideration, not me.”
“Yes, Father Vitelleschi, but you were the one who, just a few months after Galileo’s trial, encouraged the Jesuit fathers charged with defending the legitimacy of the will to reassess their case. To reassess it ‘in great detail.’ I believe those were your very words, were they not?”
Vitelleschi’s brow descended slightly. “Were we back in Rome, I would set aside some time to discover which of my colleagues have taken injudicious liberties in sharing the content of our private discussions.”
“So it’s true then: you delayed the process?” When Vitelleschi’s only response was an almost imperceptible shrug, Mazzare pressed further. “Why did you delay the proceedings?”
“Because of you.”
Mazzare blinked. “Me? How could that be? I have never even heard anything about-”
“Your Eminence, I do not mean ‘you’ in the sense of your very person, but in what you represent. Change. Up-time change. In the weeks following Galileo’s acquittal, His Holiness began contemplating how the arrival of up-
